Foreign Exchange
by CoolKid94
Summary: Ran gets volunteered to host a foreign exchange student from America, but there's something about both him and another of the students that just seems...off. There's also a serial killer on the loose. So now Conan has to deal with a really odd murderer and a bunch of foreigners who seem to know who he is. And now Haibara's acting really...flirty. Note: canon pairings.
1. Shinichi's Leftovers

This particular story is one that I've had the idea for for quite a while, but I've never really known how to write it out before now. And I'm still not sure it's OK. You're probably here because you read the summary and thought it looked interesting, but this story actually has a lot more depth than what it really looks like at first. Since there's a ton of interesting stuff that I can tell you about it, but since some of it would spoil the plot or OC character allegiances, I'm not saying a word about any of it now. Look at the ends of chapters for that kind of stuff if you're interested. I've only written up through Chapter Five as of now, but I can give you a quick look at what you can look forward to. Anything beyond that is still up in the air for now, so anything could happen. Note that I try to update every 2-5 days unless something unforeseen happens or I have exams or something. Things to look forward to:

-Group of foreigners interacting with Conan and Co. Any English dialogue will be in italics.

-The closest thing to a self-insert story you're going to get from me. Which foreigner is the self-insert character?

-Mysterious characters who know WAY more about Conan than they should. Not just the self-insert character, BTW.

-Characters mysteriously acting OOC like something out of a bad fanfiction.

-Serial Murders on top of all of this.

So that's just a brief taste. If I haven't deterred you yet, I hope you enjoy the story!

Disclaimer: I do not own _Detective Conan/Case Closed_ in any way, shape or form. I DO own all the OCs.

* * *

Chapter One

"So, what do you think?" Sonoko asked excitedly as Ran packed up her belongings. "Supposedly they've got this new sandwich that's absolutely delicious! Don't you want to go check it out?"

The school day had just ended, and Ran didn't really have anything better to do, so she accepted. "Well, why not?" she said brightly, standing up and slinging her bag over her shoulder. With no karate training that day, she had the whole afternoon free.

"All right!" said Sonoko happily, clapping Ran on the shoulder and steering her out of the classroom. "We'll let this be a lesson to Shinichi-kun! He isn't here to stop you and tell you how beautiful you are and how you shouldn't be eating extra food!"

'He'd never say that anyways,' Ran thought, blushing. As they approached the shoe lockers, an announcement blared over the PA.

"Mouri Ran-san of Class 2-B, please report to the Teacher's Room," somebody said. "Repeating, Mouri Ran-san of Class 2-B, please report to the Teacher's Room."

"What's going on?" Sonoko asked, glaring at the nearest speaker. "We were just going to get some food, too!" Looking back at Ran, she asked, "Do you know what's going on?"

Ran shook her head. "No, I don't. It must be something serious if they're calling me in after school." The two of them turned around and headed back into the school.

"Maybe they found out about your and Shinichi-kun's love affair!" Sonoko teased, a big grin appearing on her face.

"EH?" Ran said, blushing furiously. "What are you talking about? We're not like that!"

"Oh, what a great reaction," said Sonoko, giggling. "You're so cute when you're flustered."

"Come on!" Ran protested, her face still burning. They attracted a lot of funny looks from passing students, but Sonoko glared at them to make them look away. "But you know, this really is embarrassing. It's like I'm going to be suspended."

"Don't sweat it Ran!" said Sonoko cheerfully, clapping her on the back. "If you haven't done anything wrong, then nothing bad'll happen! You worry too much, Ran!"

"Maybe I do," said Ran nervously. By now they had reached the Teachers' Room, so Ran hesitantly slid the door back and went inside, Sonoko right beside her.

She'd been in the Teachers' room before, but never like this. "Excuse me!" she called out.

"Oh, you're here Mouri-san," said a teacher, Mr. Take. He gestured the two girls over to his desk as he shuffled some papers. "Don't worry, neither of you are in trouble," he smiled.

"See, I told you so!" Sonoko whispered to Ran. Ran felt immense relief, but she was still worried about what the teacher wanted.

She soon found out. "As you probably know, we're due to receive some American foreign exchange students in about two weeks. They'll stay for a month or so, living with host families. Unfortunately, one of the students who volunteered to host a student was Kudo Shinichi-kun. Since Kudo-kun's whereabouts are unknown, we are going to have to move that student to another host family. However, I wanted to ask you first before I did that. Do you know if Kudo-kun will be returning any time soon?"

Ran didn't know, so she shook her head. "He doesn't call very often, but when he does he always says he's stuck on a case and can't come back," she said sadly.

"I see," said the teacher, tapping a pencil on the desk. "Then I suppose I'll have to reassign the student after all. That won't be easy this close to the arrival date, but I'll try. Thank you for stopping by, Mouri-san." He gestured towards the door, implying that Ran was free to go.

Then Sonoko had one of her crazy ideas again. "If you're going to reassign the foreigner, then maybe Ran can take them!" she said suddenly, taking both Ran and the teacher by surprise.

"Come again?" the teacher said.

Sonoko quickly explained her weird logic. "Well, since Ran and Shinichi-kun are so close, it shouldn't be that much of an issue to reassign them, right?"

"Suzuki-san, the student is male while Mouri-san is female," said the teacher. "It wouldn't be allowed."

"Maybe not normally, but Ran's a karate master!" said Sonoko proudly, putting a hand on Ran's shoulder. "It won't be a problem if he's there, will it?"

The teacher just stared at her. "I can't just bend the rules, Suzuki-san," he said flatly. Sonoko glared daggers at him.

Ran, sensing the tension, offered her own suggestion. "What about Subaru-san? The foreigner could live with him in Shinichi's house while Sonoko and I could show him around."

"Yeah, that could work!" said Sonoko, catching on at once. "Subaru-san's a nice guy; I'm sure he'd allow it! And he's a guy, too, so there'd be no problem!"

The teacher looked between the two girls before sighing in defeat. "Oh, all right. I'll put Mouri-san on the list, as long as this 'Subaru-san' allows it."

"He will!" Sonoko said confidently. The two girls bowed before quickly exiting the room.

Once they were out of earshot of the teacher, Ran rounded on Sonoko. "What was that about?" she asked, annoyed. "Dad would never allow something like that!"

"Well, I just thought that if Shinichi-kun knew there was another man in your home, he'd come back for sure!" said Sonoko.

Ran froze. That could actually work. And her dad would get paid a fee by the school to pay for the student's expenses. That might just change his mind. "You know what? I'm in," said Ran determinedly. "Forget talking to Subaru-san; we'll just pretend we did!"

"Hold on!" said Sonoko, backpedaling. "We have to at least talk to him first. The school will probably call to confirm it at some point."

"Yeah, I guess so," said Ran. They had reached the shoe lockers, so they began replacing their shoes. "When should we talk to him?"

"Today, of course!" said Sonoko. "But first, let's go get those sandwiches."

XXX

Conan was busy reading some manga when Ran and Sonoko came home, loudly chatting about something. 'What are they so fired up about?' he thought, annoyed.

"Hey Dad!" said Ran, stopping in front of the desk and slamming her palms down on it. Kogoro, who had been watching TV at a low volume, jumped.

"What's up with you?" he asked, looking a little fearful.

"We're going to host a foreign exchange student!" Ran announced.

"Huh?" Kogoro said. "A foreign whatsit?"

"A foreign exchange student!" Sonoko reiterated. "Originally Shinichi-kun was the one who was supposed to host the student, but since he's not around, Ran volunteered instead."

'Oh, I remember that,' Conan thought. Ran and Sonoko had bullied him into it, so it wasn't like he'd had a choice. 'Wait, I signed up to get a _guy_. So does that mean…'

Kogoro seemed to have realized this, too. "Wait, we're taking on another freeloader? And a guy? No way! I won't allow it! I'm going down to the school right now and sorting this out!" He looked ready to do it, too, since he got up out of his chair and made for the door, Conan right behind him.

"Wait, Dad!" Ran shouted, making him freeze in his tracks. "We told the school he'd been staying with Subaru-san, so there'd be no point in you going. But Subaru-san said no, so he has to stay here."

'Well, he obviously wouldn't agree to that,' Conan thought. The last thing somebody undercover needed was some innocent kid in the house.

But Kogoro wasn't done. "Why can't he stay at _your_ place?" he asked Sonoko rudely. "You've got plenty of space!"

"It's because if Makoto-san drops by, he might get the wrong idea!" Sonoko retorted at once.

"You can't put the kid in one of your villas or something?" he shouted.

As the two continued arguing, Conan tugged on Ran's skirt. "Ran-neechan, why did you volunteer for this?"

"It was actually Sonoko's idea. She said that if Shinichi found out about this, he might finish up his case and come home! You'd like that, wouldn't you Conan-kun?"

'Well, yeah, but that's not happening,' Conan thought sadly. Turning back to the argument, he saw Sonoko whispering something in Kogoro's ear.

"Really? That much?" he said. His attitude changed instantly. "Well, I guess it'll be OK. Hey kid," he turned to Conan. "You don't mind staying in Ran's room for a couple of weeks, do you?"

Conan had to fight to keep from blushing. Something told him he needed to argue, but that offer was just a little too enticing. "I can do that," he said after a moment.

"Then that's settled," said Kogoro, trudging back to his seat.

"How much money did you say he was getting?" Ran whispered to Sonoko.

"I might have exaggerated a bit," she admitted cheekily.

'This'll be trouble,' Conan thought.

XXX

Subaru Okiya was reading in the house's library when the phone rang. 'What is it now?' he thought, getting up and picking up the receiver. "Kudo residence," he said.

"Oh, this is Take, a teacher at Teitan High School. Are you…'Subaru-san'?"

"Yes, that's me."

"Good, then. I'm just calling to confirm about the exchange student arrangements. Mouri Ran-san said she'd speak with you about it."

"She and her friend came by earlier and explained it fully," said Subaru.

"Then I'm glad we have an understanding," said the teacher, sounding relieved. "If you'll just come by the school and fill out the paperwork, then everything will be settled."

Subaru suddenly realized the two of them were having a different conversation. "Sir, I haven't…" he began, but got cut off.

"It's all right if you can't come by right now. Anytime before the end of the week is fine. Just ask for Take-sensei and…hold on, I'm being called. Just remember, you can come by any time!" The line went dead, leaving Subaru to stare at the phone with a look of surprise.

'I thought I agreed _not_ to do this,' he thought, sighing. Well, he could just drop by the school and sort it out.

* * *

Is it just me, or is Take-sensei a bit of an idiot? And no, he's not canon. Also, I hope I didn't portray Sonoko as OOC here. She's not supposed to be.

So the basis of the foreign exchange program is actually something my high school used to do. During the American summer vacation, several students would go to Japan and stay with host families for a little while. Granted, that was before my time, but they did used to do that. In return, Japanese students would come to our school and do the same during their vacations, usually in the January-February range, staying with host families. This still happens today, as far as I know. And since all Japanese students study English, unlike Americans studying Japanese, we'd get a ton of students visiting. The students weren't from Tokyo, but I'm bending that for the sake of the story. ;)

Next chapter, we actually meet the foreign exchange students after the two week timeskip. Hope you're looking forward to seeing them! :)


	2. Meet the Americans

As I promised, here's the chapter that introduces the foreigners! Can you ID which ones are weird by the clues I drop? The clues get dropped throughout the story, so keep an eye out for them!

* * *

Chapter Two

Over the next two weeks, the school got more and more excited as the time for the exchange students to arrive approached. Ran had explained to Subaru about how he wouldn't have to take care of the student as long as he signed the paperwork, so he had grudgingly agreed.

On the day the foreign students were due to arrive, the whole school was buzzing with excitement. During Homeroom, the students hosting the foreign students went to the Teacher's Room to meet them.

"What do you think they're like?" Sonoko whispered to Ran excitedly. "Maybe some of them are cute!"

"I'll tell Kyogoku-san on you," Ran teased.

Sonoko looked flustered. "Well, nobody can compare to Makoto-san, but it doesn't hurt to check, does it?"

The conversation came to a halt as the door slid open and the foreign students marched in. They stood out since they were dressed in normal clothes and not the usual uniforms. Plus, they obviously weren't Japanese. There were twelve students total, with two adult chaperones. The chaperones were both women, but the students had seven guys and five girls. Their appearances varied wildly, but, to Ran, they all looked incredibly smart. Well, they'd have to be if they were learning Japanese. Apparently it was just as hard for Americans to learn Japanese as it was for Japanese people to learn English. And learning Japanese wasn't required for American students anyways, unlike Japanese students being forced to learn English.

Take-sensei greeted one of the chaperones warmly with a handshake. " _Welcome to Japan Mrs. Lillian,_ " he said in English.

"Thank you, Take-sensei," the woman replied in Japanese. Surprisingly, it was pretty good, although accented.

"Now that we're all here, how about we introduce ourselves?" Take suggested. "Mouri-san, why don't you go first? Introduce yourself in English."

'Eh?' Ran thought in surprise. She knew she could do that, but she hadn't expected to get called out. " _I am Ran Mouri. It is nice to meet you_ ," she said slowly, making sure to get her words right. She bowed slightly at the end.

Now it was Sonoko's turn. Ran was better at English than Sonoko, so Sonoko just decided to copy her instead of trying to say something unique. " _I am Sonoko Suzuki. It is nice to meet you_ ," she repeated, also bowing.

The rest of the Japanese students introduced themselves similarly, some changing their words up to show off their skills. Once that was done, the American students began, speaking in Japanese.

The first guy to go was a tall Caucasian guy with black hair and glasses. "My name is Kyle Parker. Pleased to meet you." As an American, he didn't bow, looking uncomfortable at the thought of doing it.

The guy next to him, a shorter guy with red hair and freckles, went next. "I am Jesse Williams. I'm happy to meet you!" He waved at the Japanese students, making some of the girls smile.

The next person, a short girl with short, brown hair and glasses, went next. "My name is Katie Grant. Nice to meet you!" Unlike the guys, she had no problems with bowing to them. Her Japanese also sounded rehearsed.

After Katie, the rest of the Americans introduced themselves one by one. Each of them had a pretty good grasp of basic Japanese, although none of them were anywhere close to a native speaker. All of them were either Caucasian or Asian, apart from one, a girl of African ancestry. "My name is Hannah Matthews. I'm really happy to be here!" she said cheerfully, smiling at them. She was around Katie's height, but with a bust larger than Ran's so the guys all swooned.

Once they were done, Take-sensei picked up a roll of name stickers. "Well, with that done, until we all get to know each other we should all wear these stickers. Please write your full names in romaji in Western name order." He passed out the stickers and some markers, and everyone wrote down their names. With that done, he said, "Well, now we know we've all met, it's time to get to know each other. So let's go out into the courtyard so you all can mingle."

The students all nodded, so he led them outside. "Sensei, what about the assignments?" a guy, Ueda, asked.

"Of course," said Take, taking a sheet of paper out of his pocket and unfolding it. "Everyone should have already received their assigned partners, but if anybody asks, feel free to ask any of us." He gestured to himself and the foreign teachers.

"Who are we with?" Sonoko whispered to Ran as everyone started to move outside.

"The first boy, Kyle-san," Ran whispered back.

"Oh, the handsome one?" Sonoko asked dreamily.

Out in the courtyard, the atmosphere became more relaxed as everyone went with their partners and sat down. "Kyle-san!" Sonoko called, waving the boy over. Looking surprised, he hesitantly sat down near them.

"Do you know a Mr. Shinichi Kudo?" he asked slowly.

"Oh, that's her boyfriend!" Sonoko said cheerfully, gesturing at Ran.

Ran's face went red instantly. "Sonoko! It's not like that!" she protested as Sonoko grinned. To Kyle, she said, "We're friends of his. He originally signed up to host you, but he's taken a leave of absence from school, so he's out of town."

"I see. Well, it is nice to meet you, Ms. Ran," he replied, offering her his hand to shake. Ran took it, but when she grasped his hand, she felt the oddest sensation. It was kind of electrifying, like an extremely mild static shock, barely enough to notice. After she let go, Kyle shook Sonoko's hand as well. "You two, please take care of me," he said, using the Japanese phrase very effectively.

"Oh, we will!" said Sonoko enthusiastically. "But first off, is there anything about you we need to know?"

"Uh, well, I'm pretty tall, even back home, and I get really good grades. But I'm kind of lazy. My eyesight's pretty poor, so I have to wear strong glasses. I like a lot of Asian food, including ramen, udon, and sushi. No squid, though. I read a lot of books, I'm an avid gamer, and while I may look like a nerd, I'm actually pretty easy to get along with."

"Wow, that sounds kind of like an online dating profile," Ran remarked.

"Does it?" Kyle asked, surprised. "I didn't mean it like that."

"What do you know about online dating profiles anyways, Ran?" Sonoko asked suddenly, making Ran flinch.

"Oh, I uh, caught Dad making one a while back, so I saw some of the questions they were asking," she replied lamely.

"Really?" Sonoko asked, not sounding convinced. Since they were close friends, though, she didn't press the issue. Turning back to Kyle, she asked, "So, if you're such a nice guy, does that mean you have a girlfriend?"

"Not at the moment," he replied evasively. There was something odd about the way he said that, but Ran figured it wasn't any of her business. She checked the time and realized it was almost time for first period.

"It looks like it's almost time for class," she said.

"Huh, it is," said Sonoko. "Do you think Take-sensei will realize it?"

"Nope," said Ran, making them both laugh. "Oh, and Kyle-san, you can call us 'Ran-san' and Sonoko-san', OK? No need to be formal. And feel free to ask either of us anything you want to know."

"OK, Ran-san," he said, smiling at her.

XXX

That afternoon, Conan headed back to the Detective Agency immediately after school in order to keep an eye on the exchange student. He figured it would probably be a nerdy guy, since Japanese wasn't a popular language for Americans to learn, but that didn't mean he didn't need to worry. After all, Ran liked a certain detective geek, right? 'OK, that was pretty self-deprecating,' Conan thought.

When he walked in, he saw that he wasn't the only one agitated. Kogoro was trying to read the newspaper, but from the way he kept fidgeting and glancing out the window, he wasn't really paying attention to it. He'd told Ran to bring the exchange student to the Agency immediately after school so the kid could drop off his stuff, but it was pretty obvious that what he was really after was to keep an eye on the poor kid.

They didn't wait long. After about ten minutes, Kogoro suddenly looked away from the window with a jolt, indicating he'd spotted Ran. A minute passed before voices could be heard coming up the stairs. Then the door opened and four people walked in. Ran and Sonoko were in the front, chatting excitedly while the foreign student and Masumi Sera were in the back, talking in English very quickly. 'Right, Sera-san used to live in America,' Conan thought. He knew some English, but they were talking way too quickly for him to catch half of what they were saying. He noticed that both the boy and Sera were carrying the boy's belongings while Ran was carrying Sera's school stuff.

"Kyle-san, this is my dad, Mouri Kogoro," Ran told the student, indicating Kogoro. The detective had gotten up from his desk and was making his way towards them.

"Pleasure to meet you, sir," said Kyle, offering his hand for a handshake. Kogoro took it, but still watched him warily.

"Likewise," he replied. He reached into his jacket and gave him a business card.

Kyle looked at the card for a moment before putting looking back up at Kogoro. "So, you're a detective? A famous one?"

'Wait, he read that?' Conan thought, astounded. The card was entirely in kanji, which he didn't really expect an American student to know.

"Yeah!" said Kogoro proudly. "If you have any need of my services, feel free to call on the Great Detective Mouri Kogoro! Bwahahaha!" He began guffawing loudly, taking Kyle a little off guard.

"I'll keep that in mind," he said, glancing at Ran, who looked apologetic. To change the subject, he noticed Conan. "So, you're Conan-kun, aren't you? Ran-san told me about you."

"Oh, yes!" Conan replied childishly. "But, uh, what did she say about me?"

"Conan-kun! Don't be rude!" Ran chastised him, looking embarrassed.

"Nothing bad, kid. But there is one thing she said…" He bent down and whispered into Conan's ear, "she said you're really smart, but you're constantly getting into trouble. But she's overexaggerating, right?" He patted Conan's shoulder jokingly, and that was when it happened. As soon as his hand made contact, he froze in place for about three seconds like a statue before returning to normal like nothing had happened. "Let's be friends, OK?" he said, standing back up.

"Uh, sure," said Conan, his mind whirring.

"Hey, Kyle-san, how about we show you where you're staying?" Ran suggested.

"Sure!" he responded, picking up his bag from where he'd dropped it and following the girls out the door, leaving Conan and Kogoro alone again.

"Is it just me, or is he a little…weird?" Kogoro said out loud, to nobody in particular.

Conan agreed, but he didn't really know why. There were just some things that didn't add up with this guy. It wasn't a bad feeling, just a weird one. However, it was still a bit too early to draw any conclusions, so he just turned on the TV to catch up on the news.

The news segment was just beginning, so he had full access to the report. "Our main story today is that the serial murderer dubbed the Paint Man has struck again. A woman was found in a dumpster this morning behind a convenience store with her face painted bright colors. The police have not specified which colors they are, nor have they released any official information about the investigation. To all young women watching this broadcast, please do not travel alone, talk to strange men, and try to make it home before dark. In other news…"

Conan tuned out the rest of it, since the serial killer story was what he'd been interested in. "Geez, another one?" Kogoro asked. "All women, with each one's face a different color. First was orange, second was red, and now we've got white. If there's a pattern to the colors, I'm not seeing it, unless it has something to do with fire."

He was right, surprisingly. Conan expected the next color to be black, but he'd rather there not be any more corpses. 'The third murder in five days,' Conan thought. 'There was absolutely no evidence left behind, and all three women were shot in the head execution style. They weren't robbed, assaulted, or otherwise harmed. So what's this guy's motive, if it even is a guy?"

The door opened and the four teens came back in. Conan quickly shut off the TV. "Oh, good you all are here," said Kogoro. Stepping forward, he grasped Kyle by the shoulder and said, "How about I give you a tour of Beika, Mouri Kogoro-style?"

'You mean the racetrack, the pachinko parlor, and your favorite bars?' Conan thought in annoyance.

"Uh, sure," Kyle agreed. Kogoro then steered Kyle out the door, with Ran following behind, protesting loudly at his antics. Sera and Sonoko just stood there watching them.

"Sera-no-neechan," said Conan cutely, tugging on her skirt.

"Hmm? What?" she asked, looking down at him curiously.

Conan wanted to ask about the guy, but he couldn't really think of a way to ask it without sounding rude. So he tried a different tack. "You speak English, right? What'd you think of him?"

"He's actually pretty nice," Sera admitted. "A little nerdy, I guess, but that's not really a bad thing. And he knows jeet kune do."

"Jeet kune do?" Conan asked, surprised.

"Yeah, you should've seen it!" Sonoko butted in. "He got to talking to Sera-chan after first period, and when she mentioned she was into jeet kune do, he said he was, too, and then he demonstrated some of it for us! Even Sera-chan had to admit he was pretty good!"

"Well, it looked pretty good," Sera admitted. "He'd be about as good as me if he was more physically fit. You know, more muscular. But there's something about him that bugged me."

"Oh, what about?" Conan asked.

"Well, when we first started talking, we were both sitting down, and Ran-chan introduced me as Sera-san. You couldn't see my skirt because of the desk, but after we shook hands, he said, 'Nice to meet you ma'am'. You can imagine how surprised I was. People are always mistaking me for a boy."

"You weren't the only one, Sera-chan!" said Sonoko. "I think the whole class was shocked. The foreigners just looked at us like we'd lost our minds. And that girl, Katie-san, looked shocked Kyle-san knows jeet kune do. It may just be me, but I think she likes him."

'It's probably just you,' Conan decided at once, not daring to say it out loud. Sonoko was always seeing relationships where they didn't exist. But since he hadn't met Katie, he couldn't really make a decision. 'But anyways, I don't have time to focus on Kyle-san right now. First priority is getting the Paint Man.'

* * *

So we've got Kyle on one end and the Paint Man on the other. Conan has to pick one to investigate, but both are equally dangerous if provoked. And if you ignore one, something bad might happen! I wonder what? XD

Next chapter is when the Paint Man investigation starts, and we run into another weird foreigner! I named four of them, so which one will it be? And why?

If you're enjoying this story, don't forget to drop a favorite and a review so I know you're interested, 'K? ;)


	3. The Detective from America

Now to start the investigation! But Conan runs into someone else suspicious...

* * *

Chapter Three

The following afternoon, as soon as Conan got out of school, the Detective Boys headed to the scene of the Paint Man's latest crime. It was marked off with caution tape, but there weren't any police around.

"Okay, we're here!" said Genta loudly. "Now we look for footprints and other evidence!"

Mitsuhiko and Ayumi both got out notebooks, their faces hardened in determined looks. "Come on, why did you all have to come?" Conan asked, annoyed.

"Isn't it OK?" said Haibara. "It's not like this is their first crime scene. And the police would've already collected all the evidence they need."

"Yeah, yeah," said Conan, lifting the tape up and letting everybody under. The tape was at the entrance of the alley, so they had to walk along it a ways before turning the corner to get behind the store. When they did so, though, they saw that someone had already beaten them to the scene. A girl, no older than seventeen, was squatting down in the middle of the alley, staring at an open dumpster with a look of concentration. She was a foreigner, with black hair and incredibly dark skin, indicating she had African ancestry.

"Hey!" Mitsuhiko shouted. "What are you doing back here?" The girl, who had apparently been concentrating really hard, was jolted out of her thoughts by the shout. Instead of running, though, she stood up and stretched, showing off her rather large chest. She was fairly short, no taller than 170 centimeters, but had a pretty athletic build.

"I could ask you the same," she replied, in heavily accented Japanese, proving she was American. "Crime scenes are no place for children." She spoke slowly, but she was clearly pretty well versed in the language. Her eyes darted between the kids, but she didn't look scared of them at all.

Ayumi looked at the dumpster where the girl had been staring at. "Is there a clue on the dumpster?" she asked innocently.

The girl looked stunned. "A clue?" She followed Ayumi's gaze before saying, "No, nothing like that. I was just thinking about the case. I'm a bit of a detective in America, actually."

'A detective?' Conan thought. 'Why would a foreign high school detective be in Japan?' "Who are you, exactly?" he asked.

The girl looked at him again. "My name is Hannah Matthews. I'm here because my school had a foreign exchange program with a high school nearby."

"Teitan High School, right?" Conan reasoned.

"Yes!" Hannah exclaimed, looking surprised. "You know it?"

"Yeah, another of the students is staying at my place. Do you know Kyle-san?"

"Oh, you know Kyle!" said Hannah, putting two and two together. "Well, I guess I don't have to explain the whole scenario of why I'm here any further than that, then." She looked back at the dumpster, her brow furrowing. "Anyways, I've been looking for some evidence the police might've missed, but I haven't really found anything yet. There's no evidence on the dumpster of him, and there's not nearly enough blood here. The poor girl must've gotten dumped here after getting killed somewhere else. What do you think, Conan?"

'Eh? She's asking me?' Conan thought. Well, he wanted to look anyways, so this was just as good an excuse as any. He took a few steps forward and climbed on a garbage can to peer into the dumpster, using his wristwatch flashlight to illuminate the interior. 'She's right; there's nothing here,' he realized, glancing it over. All the obvious evidence would've got collected by the police already, so he was looking for smaller things. There was a distinct lack of blood, as Hannah had pointed out, which meant the victim had been murdered somewhere else. There was a lot of paint in the dumpster, though, which showed the culprit _had_ painted her face there, though.

"Well?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"The culprit murdered the victim somewhere else and dumped the body here," said Conan, clicking off the light and jumping down. Putting his hands in his pockets, he continued, "However, he did paint her face here, so he probably lingered. We should look for witnesses."

"The police would've looked for witnesses already," Haibara pointed out.

"True," Hannah agreed, slinging a red bag over her shoulder. "But people tend to be more guarded around the police, so maybe you'll get something different."

"You're not coming?" Ayumi said suddenly, picking up on her saying 'you all' rather than 'us'.

"My Japanese isn't good enough for questioning suspects," Hannah admitted. "So I'll leave it to you guys. You're the Detective Boys right?"

"Right!" the three real kids shouted excitedly. Hannah smiled at them before waving goodbye and walking away.

"Kudo-kun, pick up your jaw," Haibara said quietly once Hannah was gone.

"Oi, what are you saying?" Conan asked.

"I'm saying you're staring when you shouldn't be," said Haibara flatly. "Hopefully it's because she's really suspicious and not for less mature reasons."

"The former," said Conan darkly. "We never introduced ourselves, but she referred to me by name and knew we were called the Detective Boys. And she didn't hesitate to talk to us about the crime, even though she'd just tried to keep us out. It's like she was putting on an act."

"So? Are you going to keep an eye on her?" Haibara smirked.

"Not right now. She's suspicious, but she doesn't give us a malevolent vibe. I don't think she's an enemy. You didn't sense anything, did you?"

"No. She's not in the Organization." Haibara agreed. "But she _is_ up to something. So how about this? I'll keep an eye on her for you."

"What?" Conan asked, surprised. "Why?"

"You're busy with this, aren't you? So I'll watch the detective girl. Besides, I lived in America for years, so my English is better than yours. It'll be easier for me to eavesdrop on her conversations with the other Americans than it would be for you."

"You're serious about this, aren't you?" said Conan, still looking at her in surprise. "Well, thanks for the assist Haibara!" He gave her a pat on the shoulder before running off with the rest of the kids to start questioning people.

XXX

Masumi Sera, being a transfer student formerly from America, had hit it off pretty well with the exchange students, so they had invited her out for karaoke, the only Teitan student they'd invited. Their teachers were sitting in the corner chatting quietly while the students were having a blast, all twelve of them.

'Wait, there's only eleven of them,' Sera thought, glancing around. The African-American girl wasn't there. It was pretty obvious because the rest of the students were either Asian or Caucasian, so she stood out.

" _Hey, where's the other girl?_ " she asked a girl, Katie, in English.

" _Oh, Hannah? Who knows_?" Katie responded darkly.

" _You don't like her_?"

Katie started, then sighed. " _Guess I did a poor job at hiding it. Yeah, I don't think much of her. Not because she's black, though. It's because she doesn't even go to our school. I only met her at the planning meetings for the trip._ "

" _Just because of that?_ "

" _Well, no, not really. There were twelve spots on the trip, but only eleven people wanted to go, so Kyle suggested that we bring his friend Hannah along. She goes to a school in another city. She's really nice, and really smart, but I can't help but dislike her. I guess it's because she and Kyle are so_ close _. I've been wanting to be that close to him for a while now._ "

'Jealous, huh?' Sera thought. Just then, the door opened and the girl herself entered the room, looking really excited about something.

" _Sorry, I got sidetracked!_ " she apologized, shutting the door and taking a seat next to Kyle. She had a large red bag draped over her shoulder, which she dumped on the floor loudly. Katie glared at her disapprovingly, but didn't comment. Instead she opened a book entitled _The Traveller's Journey_ while everybody else argued over which songs they should sing.

" _Miss Matthews, you really should be more considerate of the time_ ," a teacher chastised her.

" _Yeah, if you're going to be late, you need to show up in style!_ " said Kyle cheekily, apparently ignoring the teacher. Hannah glared at him before muttering something under her breath. " _Well, since you decided to show up late, your punishment will be to go first but WE pick the song! How about it guys?_ "

Hannah looked absolutely horrified as the other students muttered in agreement. " _You're going to pick something old and boring, aren't you_?"

Kyle turned to the room. " _What do you think? Should it be something old?_ "

" _You bet!_ " said Jesse, looking really delighted. " _How about a 90s anime theme song?_ "

Hannah's face slowly took on a grin. " _You know, I think that'll work! And I have_ just _the thing!_ " She dug around in her bag before pulling out an iPod, one of the older ones. Then she got up and went over to the speakers, which she unplugged from the wall and plugged into the appropriate port on the iPod. Then she fiddled with it for a moment before music started blaring out.

" _This is the song 'Nazo' by Miho Komatsu. It was the third opening song of one of my favorite animes of all time! I_ think _I have the karaoke version._ " She glanced at Kyle subtly before taking her place in front of the microphone.

Kyle sighed, but snapped his fingers for some reason. " _You know, we were supposed to pick the song, you know._ "

" _Yeah, but I don't trust your judgment with that,_ " Hannah counteracted, waving a hand in his direction as Jesse snickered. Kyle did not look amused, but didn't say anything. Then Hannah started singing the song in OK Japanese. The song was about love and the heart or something like that. When the first verse was done, she gave her friends the OK sign, making them applaud her politely before she cut off the music. " _And that's as much as I've got memorized,_ " she said, as the room applauded. She quickly restored the karaoke box's audio setup before they got in trouble.

" _Which anime did you say that was from?_ " Jesse asked as Hannah took her seat.

Hannah looked at him brightly. " _Oh, it's this mystery anime I really like! The manga it's based on first got published in January of 1994, so it's older than us, and it lasted for over twenty years! It's about this kid who…_ " she glanced at Sera and stopped dead in her explanation. " _Well, it's something you really should see for yourselves. It never really took off in America, though, so good luck finding it._ "

" _What's it called, then_?" another boy asked curiously.

Hannah glanced at Sera again, looking decidedly nervous now. " _Uh,_ Case Closed _. Yeah, that was the Japanese name. Yeah, it totally was._ " She looked pleadingly at Kyle for some reason, looking like a cornered animal.

Fortunately for her, he took the hint. _"OK, enough about that. Who's going next_? _Katie, how about you_?"

Katie, who had been staring at Hannah menacingly, jumped. " _Uh, all right,_ " she agreed, dropping her book face down on the couch and heading for the mic. It looked like a science fiction novel of some kind, but Sera had never read it so she didn't know for sure.

But before she could start singing the song they'd chosen, the door opened and an employee poked his head in. "Yeah, uh, sorry to bother you, but I've got a little girl out here and I'm wondering if she's with any of the customers or not."

"Nah, not us," said Sera. "We're all high schoolers. Plus, my friends are all foreigners, so they wouldn't know any little kids."

"Well, if you say so," said the employee, shrugging. "The little girl looks a little foreign, though. I guess I'll let the police deal with her, then." With that, he shut the door and the group went back to their business.

* * *

LOL, Hannah is a terrible liar when she gets cornered. She's a great liar when you give her the chance to come up with a good lie, though. :D

As for who the self-insert character is, I'll give you one guess who that is. As for why the self-insert character is a girl when I'm most decidedly NOT a girl, that's a story for another day. And yes, I'm feeling trollish right now (and it would ruin the story.) Her deductive skills are on par with Conan or Heiji, FYI.

Haibara being more proactive is going to bite her in the butt sooner or later. Just saying that now. And if you think she's OOC right now, you ain't seen nothing yet. ;)

Be sure to drop a favorite, follow the story, or leave a review if you're enjoying it!


	4. Suspicious Conversation

Wow, the fandom's really quiet lately, isn't it? And I've hardly been getting any reviews, either. Thank you to the people who did review, though. ;)

Back to point, this is the chapter where character allegiances start getting revealed, including a start to why Hannah is even in the _Detective Conan_ universe to begin with. And then Haibara's OOCness starts catching up with her.

* * *

Chapter Four

Kogoro Mouri got woken up bright and early the next day by the phone ringing. "Oh, Megure-keibu-dono!" he responded after checking the Caller ID. "What's the matter?"

"We've got another body from the Paint Man," said Megure quietly. "And it's one you need to see."

The way he said that did not sound good at all. "Yeah, I'll be right over. Where are you?"

"Office building in Block 2 of Toriya City," said Megure. He rattled off the address for Kogoro to copy down before hanging up.

The door to Ran's room opened and Conan stuck his head out. "Ojisan, what's up?" he asked, noticing Kogoro's alertness.

"Big case," he said. "It's the Paint Man again."

He had intended for Conan to get the hint to stay behind, but of course he didn't, and insisted on tagging along. When they reached the location, they found the body hanging by its neck from a utility pole several meters in the air. There was absolutely no way it could've been a suicide even if the dead woman's face hadn't been painted. It was painted to resemble a caricature of Kogoro's own face. While it could have been someone else, the culprit had painted the kanji for 'Mouri Kogoro' on the woman's face where Kogoro's mustache should've been. "This guy…" said Kogoro angrily, grounding his fist into his palm. "How _dare_ he threaten the great detective Mouri Kogoro?"

"Mouri-kun," said Megure. "Did you know the victim?"

Kogoro looked, but she didn't seem familiar to him. She was very pretty, so he was sure he would've remembered her. "Nope," he replied, shaking his head.

"I see," said Megure. "Well, thanks for confirming it. Keep on your guard in case this maniac comes after Ran-kun next. We can provide a security detail if you'd like."

"There's no need for that," said Kogoro confidently. "By directly challenging the great detective Mouri Kogoro, he's just made it that much easier for me to track him down! Bwahahahaha!"

Well, he said that, but he really was worried. He quickly resolved to call every woman he knew the moment he got home to tell them to keep safe, particularly Eri. "Come on, we're leaving," he said to Conan, but Conan wasn't there. The body was still up on the pole, so he couldn't be trampling the scene or messing it up. He glanced around and saw Conan in deep discussion with a dark-skinned foreign girl. "Come on!" he said roughly, grabbing Conan by the collar and picking him up. The foreign girl watched in silence as he dragged Conan away.

XXX

Ai Haibara was continuing her investigation of Hannah. The girl had struck her immediately as weird, and she had been glad that Conan had picked up on it as well. She'd been thrown out of the karaoke box the previous day, so she'd decided to start from scratch today. As soon as school ended, she bade goodbye to her friends and headed immediately for Teitan High School.

She slipped into the grounds and started walking towards the building, hoping she wouldn't accidentally run into Ran. That would've been awkward. She attracted curious glances from passing students, but nobody stopped her. She knew that volunteering to investigate alone was a little odd, but she wanted Conan to fully focus on the Paint Man rather than something like this.

'Now, where do I go?' she thought, changing into slippers at the entrance. She stuck her shoes in Shinichi's locker, since he obviously wouldn't be using it. She strode purposely down the hall, trying her best to look like she belonged there. It'd be easier for her to infiltrate if she'd become an adult temporarily and worn a proper uniform, but for an investigation like this that was not worth doing at _all_.

When she neared a classroom on the second floor, she heard English coming from inside, and it wasn't badly accented English by a native Japanese speaker. Peering into the crack between the door and the frame, she saw two people inside, Kyle and Hannah. They were discussing something very intently. She put her ear to the crack to catch every word.

" _I'm pretty sure it's him_ ," said Hannah. " _Kogoro Mouri might be a famous detective here, but he is close to the police. There are easier targets to paint a woman's face as if he's going to paint someone up as someone else. And why would he use paint anyways? What's the purpose?_ "

" _You know Nostrum. He likes being utterly ridiculous. You remember he made you play volleyball with him after he imprisoned you?_ "

Hannah's face darkened. "Yes _, I remember. How do you forget something like that? Anyways, he's here, and we need to track him down before the local authorities. I doubt even Gin could handle him in a one on one fight._ "

Haibara froze. What did this girl know about Gin? She was talking about the same Gin, right? Luckily, Kyle didn't know him, either, which was something. " _Gin? Isn't that an alcohol?_ "

" _Normally, yes. Actually, it still is. But there's this big criminal organization that gives its most elite members codenames based off alcohol. Gin's one of the most dangerous, right after Rum and the Boss._ _You know what? Maybe we could get Nostrum to go after them. We can make him think they're a_ spin-off _of the local authorities. It wouldn't be that much of a stretch, and it'd give Conan an edge._ "

" _Will you quit being a fangirl?_ " Kyle said loudly. " _We need to AVOID doing anything unsightly. The authorities will track us down in MINUTES if we get exposed. Remember, I've been doing this a lot longer than you. The only reason you're here is because you found out where I was going and refused to be left behind. And my usual partner is still missing, so I don't really mind the company. But that doesn't mean you should be irresponsible!_ "

" _All right, chill!_ " said Hannah, looking surprised. _"That was just a joke anyway. Enough about that, though. What did you think of him?_ "

" _Who?_ "

" _Conan, of course! You're staying with his family, right?_ "

" _Well, he's obviously not a child. I knew that by just looking at him. I know how kids act, and he doesn't act like one at all. Well, he does, kind of, but it's obviously an act. After all, how many kids do you know who can stand still for minutes at a time without moving? He can, and once I got into his memories, it was obvious why._ "

" _Yeah, yeah, you can get into people's memories from physical contact. Don't rub it in,_ " Hannah muttered. _"It's basically a cheat to do that, you know. I'm a detective, and I had to learn to do stuff like that the old-fashioned way._ _Well, I had the assistance of 2030s technology, but you get where I'm going. I can't read minds and I don't really want to. They're no challenge there._ "

Haibara listened to them continue to chat with wide eyes. Were they really from the future? If so, that might explain why they knew so much about Conan and the Organization. But if they were, then why did Kyle not know a thing about Gin? Maybe he died in a fire before their time. That thought gave Haibara plenty of comfort, despite the situation.

Another thing is that they seemed to know who the Paint Man was: that guy Nostrum they mentioned. Maybe he was a time traveler, too. There was one problem with her theory, though. If they _were_ time travelers, then surely they'd have tried to blend in better. A group of high school aged foreigners walking the streets of Tokyo weren't exactly inconspicuous. So maybe they were there for another reason.

Haibara turned back to the conversation, where Kyle was giving Hannah instructions. " _Anyways, keep investigating Nostrum's stuff from the down to earth side of it. He isn't perfect, no matter what he believes. Assist the investigation alongside the police and avoid grabbing the attention of the authorities. I'll look for him in my own ways. And above all…_ " he paused a moment before continuing, _"DON'T tell anyone who you really are. I know how much of a fangirl you are, and if you get taken in for knowing too much, there'll be trouble. And beware the little boy Conan. He's as smart as you, if not more so, so you can expect him to put two and two together if you leave too many hints that we're not actually foreign exchange students._ "

" _What do you mean a little? He's a LOT smarter than me. The only people smarter than him are Sherlock Holmes and Akai._ _And believe me, I'm trying to be careful._ "

" _Really? So that's why you sang this anime's theme song at the karaoke box, and then talked about it existing as a manga in front of one of the characters? You call that CAREFUL?_ "

" _I might have…gotten…carried away,_ " Hannah admitted quietly. " _It won't happen again._ "

" _Make sure it doesn't. Just try to be a high school detective from America. Considering you really are that, it shouldn't be that difficult. Be careful not to break the fourth wall and be wary of eavesdroppers._ "

There was silence for a moment before the door flew open and Hannah was there, staring at Haibara. "Haibara?" Hannah glanced up and down the hall, but didn't see anybody else. "What are you doing here?"

Haibara said nothing, instead preparing to use a sleep dart on the girl and flee. But before she could even act, Hannah reached down and picked her up, one hand covering her watch while the other covered her mouth. "You heard all of that, didn't you?" Hannah asked, looking at her. Haibara couldn't respond, but she apparently didn't need to.

Hannah brought Haibara into the room, shutting the door with her foot. Haibara struggled against her grip, but she couldn't do anything. " _I was afraid of this_ ," said Kyle. " _I've never interacted with this girl, so this is all on you, Hannah. You did something to make her suspicious._ "

" _Yeah, yeah,_ " said Hannah. Then she put Haibara back on the ground, taking her watch away before she let her go completely. Then she bent down in front of Haibara and smiled gently. " _Sorry if I scared you just then. What gave me away?_ "

Haibara was silent for a moment, scared to death, before saying, in English, " _You referred to us by name before we introduced ourselves._ "

Kyle suddenly laughed while Hannah looked mortified. " _Crap, I forgot to ask your names, didn't I? Figures._ "

" _And you thought I was being annoying by telling you to be careful,_ " said Kyle.

" _Oh, rub it in, why don't you?_ " said Hannah, annoyed.

" _Believe me, I will. But first we have to deal with this girl._ " He walked forward and took Haibara by the hand, but suddenly froze like a statue for a few seconds. " _Whoa, I totally forgot to set that for adults again. The same thing happened when I met that kid Conan. So you're Ai Haibara, real name Shiho Miyano, codename Sherry. And you're here alone, which is good._ "

" _Really?_ " Hannah asked, looking surprised. " _That seems really out of character._ "

" _Well, her friends know she's looking into us, or rather YOU, but she didn't tell them where she was going, which is good. But we can't afford to have them looking into us. The problem now is how we keep this hidden. I don't wipe people's memories because I've had that done to me way too many times in my life, and I don't like it. So how do we make her forget? Or lie to her friends about us not being important. Hmm…_ " He was silent for a moment before his face lit up. To Haibara, in Japanese, he asked, "Haibara-san, I've seen your memories, and your desires. Tell me, have you ever heard of fanfiction?"

XXX

Professor Agasa was busy fixing dinner when the door opened and Haibara walked in, looking a little jittery. "Ai-kun? What's wrong?" he asked, dropping what he was doing the moment he saw her looking off.

Haibara dived onto the couch, her backpack still on, looking exhausted. "I don't know," she muttered, her voice muffled by the couch. "I went to do an errand for Shinichi, and the last thing I remember is walking into the grocery store. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in the high school's infirmary."

Agasa was now very concerned, especially since she never called Conan 'Shinichi'. "Did you faint or something?"

Haibara grabbed her head. "It doesn't feel like it. I don't know what this feeling is. Everything just seems…off. Does that make sense?"

It didn't make sense, so Agasa wasn't taking any chances. "I'm taking you to see Araide-sensei right now," he decided, leaving his food behind as he went to get his keys. "Did the nurse at the school say anything?"

"There wasn't a nurse. I just walked out."

"Then that settles it. Come on." He took Haibara, who still looked addled, by the hand, relieved her of her bag, and led her out the door.

* * *

So Kyle did _something_ to Haibara, but good luck guessing what it is. I will warn you, though, that she WILL start acting severely OOC from this point on, at least until whatever it is gets fixed, _if_ it gets fixed. I haven't decided that yet.

I suppose this is the point where I'd better give a little bit of background on Hannah, Kyle, and the Paint Man. Believe it or not, all three are actually characters in my original works, so this is technically a crossover, although I couldn't mark it as such because I haven't published my stuff yet. Hannah is a supporting character in _The Search for the Scrolls,_ Kyle (that's not his real name, BTW) is the main character of _The Traveller's Journey_ and a supporting character in _The Search for the Scrolls_ , and the Paint Man is the primary antagonist of _The Search for the Scrolls_ and a supporting character in _The Traveller's Journey_. (Confused yet? XD ) The two stories share a universe, but they're independent of each other. The events the characters reference are events from the books. I've come up with a good way for the two worlds to coexist peacefully, and I'll share that eventually. For now, I'll just let you guess what everybody's up to! :D

If you enjoyed this chapter, and the preceding ones, then don't be afraid to hit the favorite button, follow the story, and leave a review. And if you have any questions about anything, shoot me a PM. I'll generally respond to them within a week. ;)


	5. Haibara Declares War

Thanks for the reviews last time! This chapter's going to have a bunch of WTF moments, so look forward to it!

Warning: Massive OOC alert. Justified in-story, but still pretty jarring.

* * *

Chapter Five

"Eh? Ai-chan did?" Ran asked, aghast. She held the receiver tightly as Agasa informed her of what had happened. "Yes, of course I will," she replied, before hanging up.

"What happened, Ran-neechan?" Conan asked, looking worried.

"Ai-chan had a bit of an…incident earlier," said Ran hesitantly. "Apparently she fainted from something or other and Agasa-hakase is having Araide-sensei take a look at her. He said Ai-chan is physically OK, but she's acting oddly."

Conan's face took on a look of sheer panic for a moment before he took on a worried expression. "I'm going to go see her!" he suddenly decided, making a break for the door. Ran quickly intercepted him before he could escape.

"Don't worry, Conan-kun! She's back at Agasa-hakase's for now, so you can go see her in the morning. It's really late now, anyways, and it's past your bedtime."

Conan looked deeply affronted, an odd look for a child. But he didn't try to fight her, which was something. "All right, Ran-neechan," he said quietly. He slowly walked into her room and shut the door. Their sharing a room actually hadn't been that bad of an arrangement. It forced Ran to not stay up late since Conan had to go to bed early. And her father would make sure Kyle wouldn't get any ideas and try to sneak into her room. That was actually a good thing, too, since it forced her father to not drink so he could be able to keep an eye on him.

"Come to think of it, where _is_ Kyle-san?" Ran wondered aloud. He'd been there for dinner, but he'd stepped out a while ago and hadn't returned yet.

"He's away from you, and that's what matters," said Kogoro absentmindedly.

"Come on, Dad! Give it a rest already!" Ran complained.

"Sure, when he's gone," he responded rudely. The whole Paint Man thing was really taking its toll on him, especially since he didn't have any leads. Ran rolled her eyes in annoyance and went back to her homework. Kogoro apparently noticed this, and actually did something to remedy the situation. "Look, if you're so worried about him, give him a call, all right? He carries a cell, right?"

"Probably, but I don't know his number," said Ran. She was spared from having to search for it by Kyle's timely arrival.

"I'm back!" he called from the door.

"See, he's back," said Kogoro. "Now you don't have to worry about him."

"Dad, don't make it sound gross!" Ran protested as Kyle took a seat at the table. "So, where'd you go?" Ran asked.

"Just exploring," he replied vaguely, not meeting her gaze. "I found this really cool mask shop a little ways away, and I found a bunch of stuff I wanted. But I couldn't fit any of it in my luggage, so I couldn't get anything."

"Oh, well, I'm sure you'll find something to keep as a souvenir!" said Ran brightly, trying to cheer him up. "Maybe you should head to Ginza and get something."

"Well, it's not Ginza, but we were all going to go to Touto Tower over the weekend to check it out. They have souvenir stuff there, right?"

"Yeah, they do," said Ran. "Maybe a key chain will be OK? You could even give it to a girl when you get home."

"Maybe I'll do that," said Kyle, looking a little embarrassed. "But I doubt she'd like that kind of thing. She's a big bookworm and doesn't really care about things like that."

Ran had a hunch she knew exactly who he was talking about. "The girl…is it Katie-chan?" she asked, feeling mischievous.

Surprisingly, Kyle didn't jump in surprise. Instead he put a finger to his lips and said, "Shh! Don't spread that around, OK?"

"Fine, fine!" said Ran cheekily, knowing full well she had a mischievous look on her face and not caring one bit.

"That reminds me, if you have a boyfriend, why are you on online dating sites?" Kyle asked suddenly. Kogoro literally spat out his drink in shock, sending it all over the table.

"Oi Ran! What are you doing on those types of things?" he exploded furiously. Ran felt highly indignant, as she felt she a very good reason. Unknown to the quarreling father and daughter, Kyle quietly disappeared into the bathroom to avoid the brunt of the argument, almost as if he'd started it on purpose as a diversion. A minute later, he could be heard taking a bath.

"What's wrong with that?" Ran demanded angrily. "Everybody does it nowadays! And you meet plenty of interesting people on there!"

"And a bunch of loons who think you exist so they can do bad things to you!" said Kogoro. The door to Ran's room opened and Conan emerged in his pajamas, looking like he hadn't slept a wink.

"Is that true, Ran-neechan?" he asked innocently, looking up at her with those big eyes.

Ran looked between the two guys, wondering just how she could explain herself. She decided to just spill the truth and let them decide. "It's not what either of you think!" she said at last, patting Conan on the head. "It's just I thought I'd trawl some of the free sites to make sure Shinichi wasn't doing anything unseemly. Or _you_ ," she added, glaring at Kogoro, who visibly looked frightened. Well, that was part of the truth, at least. In truth, Eri had requested she do it to keep an eye on a client's activities a while back, and Ran had kept the account open just in case.

Conan looked up at Ran, with a bit of a sad look in his eye. That was a sad look she saw, right? Just as quickly, it was gone. "Well, if that's all, then it's all right!" he said cheerfully. "I should know better than to doubt you, Ran-neechan!"

Kogoro pulled out his smartphone to check out the website. "Ran, what's your username?" he asked, glancing at her.

"It's probably something like 'ILUVSHINICHI," Conan teased.

"No, of course it isn't!" Ran protested. "It's 'KarateMasterGirl0504!"

Kogoro typed it in and waited for the results, Conan peering over his shoulder. Ran waited impatiently as the two took their time looking through her stuff.

"Wow, you're pretty honest, aren't you?" Kogoro said, reading down the profile. "And I like the part that says you'll break anyone's face that tries anything with you. But still, I'm really worried about this. The Internet is full of creeps."

Ran knew that very well, of course. She got over a hundred emails a day from people wanting to be creepy. "Look, I can take care of myself, Dad!" she said, feeling annoyed. She snatched the phone out of his hand and turned off the display. Then she thought of a good way to distract him. "How about this, then?" she asked, searching for a user by the name of WannabeIdolSinger23. The pictures showed a woman in her early twenties wearing glasses and looking distinctly nerdy.

Kogoro took back the phone, took one look at the pictures, and screamed, "It's Yoko-chan! Yoko- _chan_!" He forgot all about being mad at Ran as he searched the profile. "Yoko-chan, I _love_ your disguise!" he shouted.

"Now, we should really get to bed, right Conan-kun?"she asked Conan.

"Oh, sure!" he said, taking a few steps towards Kogoro's room before realizing what he was doing and heading for Ran's room instead.

'How cute!' Ran thought, smiling.

XXX

The next day, Conan started his investigation up again. Neither he nor Kogoro had discovered anything of interest the previous day, so he was going to give it his all. He was also worried about Haibara, since she wasn't one to really faint for no reason. And she'd been investigating that foreign detective. Could she have encountered something she shouldn't have?

That was why Conan headed over to Agasa's first thing in the morning, waking up early and skipping breakfast in his haste to get there.

"Oh, Shinichi!" said Agasa, opening the door to let him in. "Are you here to see Ai-kun?"

"Yeah," said Conan, changing his shoes and dumping his backpack. "Is she OK?"

"She's still acting weird," Agasa admitted. "It's like she's not all there or something. You may want to be careful."

Conan nodded as he followed Agasa to the basement, where Haibara was working. Or rather, she was busy smashing her research with a hammer. "Oi, what are you _doing_?" Conan demanded the moment he walked into the room.

"Well, we don't need this anymore, so I'm getting rid of it Shinichi," said Haibara, turning around and giving him a big smile. She tossed the hammer at a wall, and it fell to the floor.

Conan did a double take. "What did you just call me?"

"Oh, what are you saying?" she asked, still smiling. It was a completely genuine smile, which was surprising since she never smiled like that. Then she raced forward and threw her arms around him, catching Conan completely off guard. "Shinichi, you came to see me first thing in the morning!" she exclaimed happily.

"Uh, yeah, I did," he said hesitantly, patting her on the shoulder. "So, you're feeling better now?"

"Right as rain!" she said cheerfully, a complete change from her normal, quiet personality. She was still hugging him tightly, showing no signs of letting go. "I'm sorry for worrying you, but I'm all right now! So how about we go on a date?"

Conan's jaw dropped. "Oi, what are you saying?" he asked. He had a bad feeling about where this conversation was going. "We have school today, don't we?"

"Well, yeah, but it's elementary school, and we're both too smart for it. So why don't we skip and go to Tropical Land or something?"

Conan firmly pushed her off of him. "Are you sure you're OK? You're acting really weird."

"Is that wrong? It's just I'm so happy now that we're dating!" Both Conan and Agasa took on identical looks of stunned surprise. Haibara noticed it and looked between them. "What's up with you two? Is there something on my face?" She glanced at a mirror to check.

Agasa broke the awkward silence. "Ai-kun, perhaps it's better that I take you back to Araide-sensei today."

"Why? I told you I'm fine!" she protested.

But Agasa put his foot down, a rarity for someone as nice as him. "No, you're not. You're acting very weird. And you should know that you and Shinichi aren't dating."

Haibara stopped dead. She looked at Conan and said, "So that big confession was a lie? The whole 'Thanks for helping through this terrible time' thing was just empty words?" She crossed her arms with a very angry expression on her face.

"I…don't know what you're talking about," Conan admitted. That, apparently, was too much, because she just lost it.

"FINE THEN!" she shouted, shoving past Conan and running from the room, tears streaming from her eyes.

Conan and Agasa shared a look. "Shinichi, what do we do now?"Agasa whispered, looking at the door Haibara had just passed through. "I don't want anyone to think she's crazy, but what can we do? She's clearly suffering from something, but Araide-sensei says that physically she's OK. And I don't think we can take her to see a therapist."

They thought about it for a minute, neither wanting to confront Haibara directly. Then Conan had an idea. "Then we'll give her someone to vent to?" he suggested, pulling out his phone and dialing a number. "Ah, Ran-neechan?"

"Conan-kun! Where did you go? Have you gotten anything to eat?"

"I'm here with Haibara right now, but she's acting really funny. Do you think you could talk to her?"

There was silence for a moment. "Yes, I'll come right away," said Ran, sounding determined. Conan hardly ever asked for favors like this, especially when he sounded so serious, and he knew Ran was picking up on that.

After Ran hung up, it barely took her ten minutes to arrive. She was hot and sweaty, so she must've run all the way there. "Where's Ai-chan?" she asked the moment she walked in, taking note of the look on Conan's face.

"The bathroom," said Agasa, pointing at the door. "You'll want to be careful, since she's acting really weird, almost delusional."

"All right," said Ran, looking determined. "I don't know what I can do, but I'll try my best. You two go away." She pointed to the back of the house to make them leave.

XXX

"Ai-chan?" Ran called out hesitantly. "Are you OK in there?" She knocked a couple of times on the door, waiting for a response.

It was quiet for a moment before the door swung open, leaving her face to face with the little girl. Haibara was staring at her with wide eyes, like she'd seen a ghost. She looked like she'd been crying her eyes out. "It can't be…" she said, looking astonished. Then she stepped forward and hugged Ran as tightly as possible, as if she was trying to determine if Ran was actually there.

"It's all right, Ai-chan," Ran consoled her, dropping to her knees and returning the hug. Haibara now started bawling, which surprised Ran a lot. It wasn't like Haibara to be this emotional about anything.

"Was it a bad dream, then?" Haibara asked, sniffling.

"Tell me about it, Ai-chan," said Ran, standing up and taking the girl by the hand. She led her over to one of the couches and sat down next to her.

Haibara was silent for a moment, choosing instead to blow her nose with a handkerchief. "Two months ago, you and Conan-kun got into a confrontation with a criminal that had murdered a politician. Conan-kun had gone off on his own to track them down, and you followed. They killed you when you went to protect him. The police and Hattori-san showed up almost immediately after to defeat the criminal, but it was too late for you."

'So that's what this is about,' Ran thought. Instinctively, she gave Haibara a hug. 'Well, I'm not dead, so you don't need to worry.'

But Haibara shook her head. 'The dream was so _real_ , though. Or maybe this is the dream. Either way, I've done something terrible. In the dream, Conan-kun was devastated. One thing led to another, and we started seeing each other. Earlier this morning, I confused it with reality and asked him on a date."

'Oh,' Ran thought. She knew exactly how she'd feel if she confused a dream like that with reality. If she'd confessed to Shinichi before she knew he felt the same way, she would've been absolutely mortified, not to mention embarrassed beyond belief. She probably would've cried too, the same way Haibara had been doing before Ran had shown up. "Don't worry, Ai-chan," said Ran, rubbing the girl's shoulders. "I'll tell Conan-kun some lie about how you were high on painkillers or something. He won't think badly of you, Ai-chan. I promise you that." She smiled gently at the girl, who, while she still looked unsettled, looked grateful.

"Thank you Ran-chan," she replied, returning the smile.

'Ran-chan?' Ran thought. She let it pass since the girl was emotionally distressed, but it was technically inappropriate for her to call her that. It was also odd she called Conan 'Conan-kun' since she never did that, either.

"Also, could you do one more favor for me, Ran-chan?" Haibara asked. "Tell Uemura-sensei that I don't feel like going to school today."

"Uemura-sensei? Doesn't he teach third grade?" Ran asked in surprise. "Your teacher is Kobayashi-sensei, right?"

Haibara looked at her with a surprised look. "What are you talking about? I've been in third grade for three months already."

Now Ran was heavily confused. She looked around, spotted Haibara's backpack on the floor, and picked it up. Looking at the ID tag, it read 'Haibara Ai; Teitan Elementary Class 1-B'. Wordlessly, she handed it to the girl, who read the tag with wide eyes.

This time, she acted more in character, meaning she stayed quiet and emotionless. "This really isn't a joke, is it?" she said, looking at the tag. "It's like the last two years never happened. I thought Conan-kun looked shorter." She paused a moment before continuing. "The thing about dreams is that you generally don't remember them in full. But my memory of it is perfectly clear, so perhaps it's not a dream. Maybe I've gone back in time two years! That's what if feels like to me, at least. And maybe, since this has happened, I can fashion a world where I'll still win, but you won't die this time."

She smirked broadly at this. Looking Ran dead in the eyes, still smirking, she said, "For the first time in years, I'm more confident than I've ever been. I've had almost everything I've ever wanted in the palm of my hands, and I'd rather have everything instead of just settling for half of it. Perhaps the shark and the dolphin _can_ peacefully coexist after all." Then she stood up, now giving off an evil-looking slasher smile as she turned to Ran. "Ran-chan, prepare for war."

* * *

Whatever theories you were throwing around, I bet you weren't expecting THAT. XD

So I guess I'd better address the elephant in the room before I talk about anything else. The details about what happened to Haibara won't ever be told in the story (most likely), so I'm just going to tell you now. There will still be plenty of suspense, though, so don't worry about spoilers or anything. Anyways, you probably noticed that the way Haibara was acting seems like something out of a bad CoAi fanfiction. That's no coincidence. Kyle doesn't erase memories for personal reasons even though he can, so what he did was _exchange_ Haibara's memories with another Haibara, one from a CoAi fanfiction set two years later. I'm not referencing any particular fanfiction here, but if you're familiar with CoAi fanfiction in any way, shape, or form, you've probably encountered one like it. And if not, just remember that this story, _Foreign Exchange_ , has canon pairings, which is what causes a lot of the conflict. No CoAi ending here.

The new Haibara has an extra two years of life experience, so she knows a lot of things the old Haibara wouldn't. These are both small things, like when Higo when games, and big things, like the antidote to APTX-4869. Well, maybe not the full antidote, but she'd know a lot more about it. She would also have had different relationships with various characters and may know information about them they canonically wouldn't have told her (like Subaru's true identity). In other words, she'd be a formidable antagonist if I went that direction. Who knows, though? Do you all think I should?

The next chapter will be the first half of a two-chapter case involving the Paint Man's next victim. It's really flashy this time, so I hope you enjoy reading about it! ;)

As always, if you're enjoying the story, leave a favorite, follow the story, and leave a review!


	6. Tower Murder

The first part of the Touto Tower case is here! The Paint Man does something so audacious you might not even believe it. But that's just how crazy he is.

Also, I'd just like to remind people that this is NOT a romance story. The Haibara subplot is just there as a distraction/humor, and all canon pairings will apply in the end. That being said, feel free to enjoy the ride no matter which pairing you ship. ;)

I also fixed the genre of the story, as more of the sci-fi elements are being seen now, so I labeled it sci-fi. The sci-fi stuff is generally relegated to the background, though, so it generally won't interfere with the detective stuff.

* * *

Chapter Six

"Ai-chan, what are you doing?" Ayumi said pleadingly. Genta and Mitsuhiko glared at Conan like Haibara's sudden clinginess was totally his fault.

"Haibara, enough," said Conan, quickly extricating himself from her grip. She looked sad, but that expression went away immediately. "Sure, Conan-kun!" she said cheerfully, earning Conan more death glares.

Ayumi looked about to cry, so Conan decided to change the subject. "Look, we're at Touto Tower, aren't we? The group of foreigners should already be upstairs. So let's go meet 'em!"

"Yes!" the three kids shouted. It was the weekend now, and they were enjoying the day off from school. Professor Agasa was their chaperone, but he'd gone off to park the car, and he hadn't returned yet.

"Come to think of it, a new pizza place opened up near here," said Genta thoughtfully. "It was over there, I think." He pointed off in the direction that Agasa had gone to park the car.

"You don't think he forgot about us and went to get pizza!" Ayumi exclaimed.

"Nah, he wouldn't do that to us," Mitsuhiko told her, trying to calm her.

"It's his own fault if he got sidetracked," said Haibara. "It's not like the diet's ever going to work anyways, so why worry about him? Now, come on, we need to get in line." Her sudden out of character statement caught them all off guard, so they just agreed by nodding silently.

'OK, seriously, what is _up_ with her?' Conan thought as the kids started walking to the ticket line.

"Hey, isn't that dangerous?" a woman said suddenly. She was pointing almost straight up.

"Yeah, that is!" her friend said, following her gaze. The women took out their phones to film the situation, attracting the attention of other tourists.

"Hey, what's she doing up there?" a man asked.

'What?' Conan thought. He looked up and used his telescopic lenses to see just what they were talking about. At the top of Touto Tower, on the very top of the spire, there was a woman. As he watched, a figure standing behind her suddenly shot her through the head with a pistol, before painting her face white, putting her head through a noose, and throwing her off the tower, her body only stopping because of the rope. Then he threw the paintbrush and the pistol off the tower before he quickly shimmied down the ladder. Conan was too far away to see his face, but he could tell that the culprit was definitely male.

Conan raced over to a security guard, who was looking up at the woman with a pair of binoculars. "Oi, you need to lock down the tower and call the police! Quickly!" he screamed. The guard looked confused since he was taking orders from a kid, but complied anyways, radioing the commands into the radio.

He made his way over to the entrance, where security and the employees were just receiving orders to keep all the guests inside and to keep new guests from coming up. 'Good, hopefully that'll keep him from escaping,' Conan thought.

The roar of helicopters could suddenly be heard, so Conan glanced up and saw three of them converge on the tip of the spire. Some men rappelled down out of the helicopters, cut the woman free, and then hauled her body up into one of the choppers before they flew away. 'Oi oi!' Conan thought in horror as the choppers flew off. The helicopters were marked as 'Police HQ', but their tactics didn't match the police's at all. Besides, the response time was way too quick.

"What's with those helicopters taking the body?" he asked out loud.

"Helicopters? What are you talking about?" Mitsuhiko asked.

"Somebody took the body?" said Genta.

"You didn't see them?" Conan asked. All four of them shook their heads. 'Just what is going on here?' Conan thought. He glanced up again, but suddenly the helicopters returned, replacing the woman's body before disappearing again. Making a decision, he said, "You guys wait out here and make sure nobody leaves. I'm heading up to investigate!" Ignoring their protests, he ducked under the ticket barrier and ran inside.

He got into an elevator and headed straight for the upper observation deck. Once there, he tried to get to the roof, but the employees were keeping curious guests out. 'I guess I'll have to wait for the police,' Conan thought, resigning himself to wait. There wasn't any way he could sneak through with the employees physically in the doorway.

Then a girl walked up to the employees and tried to bluff her way past. "I am a detective. Will you let me pass?" she asked.

'Oh, it's Hannah-san,' Conan thought as the foreign girl and the employees began to argue. It was all for naught, though, as Hannah eventually walked away, looking annoyed. Then she noticed Conan and a gleam came into her eyes.

"Hey Conan!" she exclaimed, approaching him. "You heard what happened, right?"

"Yeah. My friends and I were down on the ground, so we saw the woman get shot."

"Well, they're not letting me go and look, and I doubt they'll let you, either, not even after the police get here. If we're going to get a chance to see the scene, we'll have to be sneaky about it. What do you say?"

"Uh, what do you have in mind?"

Hannah grinned at him. "Just lend me your Stretchy Suspenders and I'll show you!" she said cheekily, reminding him a lot of Sera in how she was teasing him. He didn't know how she knew about the suspenders or what she was planning to do, but she'd invited him along, so he didn't see that big a problem with it. And he didn't have anything better to do, anyways.

"This had better pan out," he told her, handing the suspenders over.

Oh, it will," she told him. "But I'll need to prepare. Hmm…" She glanced around the deck before apparently hitting on an idea. She dug around in her bag and removed an omamori – a good luck charm. Clutching it tightly to her chest, she closed her eyes and muttered in English, " _Rachel, I need some aid_." Then she put it away again. "We'll just take a quick look at the body so we can determine the type of suspect we're looking for. So let's go do that!"

With the suspenders in hand, she marched around the deck until they found the electrical room. The door was locked, but she attached one end of the suspenders to the door handle and the other to a pole. She gestured for Conan to stand back as she pushed the button. There was a great creaking noise as the door was slowly pulled out of its frame, before the lock broke and the door flew open with a loud clang.

"Now for a distraction," Hannah told him. She ran into the room, did something, and the lights for the entire floor went out. She emerged a moment later and the two returned to the main part of the deck.

Although the lights were out, it was still the middle of the day, so it wasn't that dark. That wasn't what she'd been trying to do. No, she'd just wanted a distraction so they could slip upstairs. With the employees trying to comfort the guests and figure out what was going on, the two detectives slipped up the stairs without anyone noticing. Once they were clear of the crowd, Conan asked, "One question: what about the cameras? Knocking out the lights for the tower isn't exactly legal, you know."

"Oh, they aren't working, either," she reassured him. "They didn't catch us going into the electric room, and they aren't on right now."

"Then what's with the charm?"

She smirked again. "Sorry, but that's a secret. Okay, not really. I was asking a friend of mine for help is all. You know, for moral support."

"Using an omamori?"

"What's wrong with that?" she asked, climbing up a ladder agilely.

'It's just really weird, especially for a foreigner,' Conan thought. They continued in silence until they reached the very top. Once there, Hannah took out her phone and took a picture of the cityscape. "Really, you're taking pictures right now?" Conan said, a little weirded out.

"What? I'm a tourist," she said, sounding concerned. "And I want to rub it in the face of a friend of mine that we're up so high. He really hates heights."

"You mean Kyle-san?"

"Nah, somebody back home. Now, who wants to climb the spire?"

Conan looked straight up the spire to where the body was hanging at the very top. Apparently it really hadn't been taken after all, since it was clearly still there. The rope didn't even look cut.

"You know what? I'm taller than you, so it'll be easier for me," said Hannah, removing her red bag and giving it to Conan. She grabbed a pair of disposable gloves from within the bag, put them on, and prepared to scale the pole. Then she tensed up and jumped, grabbing onto it and climbing up it like a monkey.

'Wow, she's agile,' Conan thought. Yet again, she'd surprised him, but thinking about it he probably shouldn't have been since she seemed pretty athletic. The problem was, after what had happened to Haibara, he didn't trust her at all. 'Wait, I have her bag, so how about I check it?' He wracked himself mentally for not thinking of it before, but he quickly remedied the situation by opening the flap and peeking inside.

A quick look showed there was little out of the ordinary, just some books, a computer, a tablet, a bunch of detective stuff, her wallet and phone, and other belongings. He took out the phone and examined it. It was a foreign brand of smartphone, one that wasn't really popular in Japan but was in America. He hit the power button to turn on the display, but a passcode screen came up. 'Great, I don't have a clue what her password is,' Conan thought in annoyance. He didn't have the time to try and guess, so he was forced to put the phone away.

The rest of the electronic stuff would probably be password protected, too, but the books weren't. He took a random book and looked at the cover. It was _A Beginner's Guide to Tokyo_. 'Well, she _is_ a tourist,' he thought. He looked at some of the other books, but they were tourist stuff, too. Then he noticed a book he hadn't seen before. It was smaller than the others, and it looked like a manga volume. He picked it up and looked at the cover. It was indeed a manga volume, colored yellow and orange and featuring a picture of a little anime kid with glasses cosplaying as Sherlock Holmes. It also had the English title _Case Closed_. What was most disturbing was that on the left side of the cover, the manga's Japanese name was written in kanji: _Meitantei Conan_.

Conan knew some English, so he quickly opened the book and started reading. What he read shocked him. 'This is…my life?' he thought. It started with him as Shinichi solving a murder at a mansion before moving on to the roller coaster murder at Tropical Land. It showed everything, from his and Ran's conversation, to Gin and Vodka poisoning him, to his waking up as Conan. He quit reading after the first chapter from shock.

'So this is how she knows everything about me? About us?' he thought in horror. If this was truly a chronicle of his life as Conan, and she had read all of this, it was no wonder she'd recognized all of them. 'When was this published? And by who?' he wondered, checking the date. 'First published in 1994, huh? So this is pretty old. But…' he quickly flipped through the book, '…the only people who show up in this book are me, Ran, Occhan, Megure-keibu, and Okino Yoko-san. So there are probably more books.' He checked the bag again, but he didn't find any more. He took a picture of the cover and some of the pages with his phone before replacing the book in the bag.

'Hannah-san, what exactly is your secret?' he thought.

* * *

I suppose the main question here is 'How did he get a girl to the top of the tower at all?' Either he carried her up the ladder or she went up by herself somehow. The suspects and the case resolution will be next chapter, so look forward to Hannah vs. the criminal in interrogation.

One thing I will say about the Paint Man is that he is absolutely crazy-prepared for just about anything that could happen, so actually nabbing him will take more than just Conan or Hannah IDing him. In his home series (the fantasy one), he cheats death after being shot with a gun AFTER a prophecy predicted he would die and survives being magically trapped in a clay jar, so anything can go.

Also, the whole omamori part is Hannah using it to communicate with a character that will not appear, who knows magic. Hannah does NOT know magic, and magic will not appear in this story in a prominent role for reasons I'll explain later (aka the Paint Man doesn't use magic to commit murders, cause otherwise Conan couldn't solve them). The other character channeled her own magic through the omamori towards what Hannah wanted, which in this case was to disable the security cameras. So that's how the cameras got disabled. She knocked out the power manually by entering the electrical room.

Next chapter is the conclusion, so I hope you're sticking around for it. And let me know in a review how the story's going, or if you're confused by something. Or you can tell me if I'm spoiling too much in my author's notes. PMs work too if you want to complain. ;)


	7. The Murderer Knows Spanish

So I guess I broke my update every 2-5 days rule, huh? Well, I have a good reason. I was at a leadership retreat sponsored by my school over the weekend, so I was busy doing other things. Technically I could've posted this earlier this week, but it kept slipping my mind. I've been trying to be more proactive with my life, so I don't have nearly as much free time to write anymore. But I'll try my best to finish this story; so don't you worry! ;)

* * *

Chapter Seven

Inspector Megure of the Metropolitan Police was busy trying not to lose his hat. He'd just climbed up Touto Tower as high as he could go given his physical stamina, and now he was looking up, one hand on his hat, while watching over the crime scene. Nearby were Conan and a foreign girl with a red bag, who were busy talking to Takagi. They'd intruded on the crime scene and Megure had already given them an earful about it.

The girl had identified herself as a detective, which made Megure sigh in annoyance just looking at her. 'Another detective? Just how many of these guys are going to show up?'

Putting the girl out of his mind, he watched as the corpse was lifted into a helicopter to be taken to be autopsied. This serial killer, the Paint Man, kept doing things which seemed more and more impossible. He'd started off as just another criminal whose M.O. was he shot the victims and painted their faces before leaving them somewhere out of the way. Then he'd hung a victim from a telephone pole, and had called out Kogoro. There had been no witnesses for that, just as for all the other crimes, and they still didn't know how he'd done it.

Now the criminal's crimes were escalating. He had absolutely no idea how it had been done, since it was hard enough getting up the ladder to the top of the spire by yourself, as Megure had found out the hard way when he'd had to give up. How did he convince his victim to go up there? 'Does that mean that he knew the victim?' he thought. 'But why would someone go along with something like that?'

"Takagi, go look for witnesses!" he told the detective.

"Actually, these guys are saying there are only three suspects," said Takagi hesitantly.

"What? Why?" Megure asked curiously.

The foreign girl spoke up. "It's because of her belongings. The victim is a high school girl from Haido Girls Academy, and she's even wearing her uniform. She had her ID on her, and it proves that she is currently a student there. Yet her ticket was bought early this morning. As I recall, Japanese high schools have classes on Saturday mornings, right? So why was she here and not in class? It's because she either came here with someone or she planned to meet someone here, and the plans were last minute."

"Yeah, OK. So why are there three suspects?" Megure asked.

This time Conan piped up. "It's because there are only three people still here that bought tickets early this morning. The victim bought her ticket at around 8:30 this morning, but there are only three people here in the whole tower that bought tickets before 10:00. The victim was put in a very public place, and we even saw the guy doing it. The front doors were shut down right after that, so the culprit should be trapped in here."

"Fine, show them to us," said Megure. There were hundreds of guests, and they'd be questioning everyone anyways, so it wouldn't hurt to hear them out. With that, they all headed downstairs to the lower deck.

" _Hey Kyle!_ " Hannah said in English, waving at another foreigner.

" _What?_ "

" _Those guys I called you about and told you to ID; where are they?_ "

" _We've got them occupied over here,_ " he replied, beckoning for the police to follow. Megure hadn't caught most of what they were saying since they were talking so fast, but he caught the gist of it.

The location in question was one of the corners of the deck, where three men were sitting and watching some more foreigners do some kind of charades.

"Excuse me," said Megure, cutting in, and showing his badge. "I'm Megure from Police HQ. Do you mind if we ask you some questions?"

"Police? Why?" asked one guy. He looked college-aged, and dressed like a punk. "Is it illegal to watch foreigners being stupid?"

"It's just some standard questions about the crime," Takagi told him. "You're not under arrest, and it's entirely voluntary."

"Oh, all right," the guy said, shrugging. The other two suspects, a fat, nerdy guy in his late teens and an older man around thirty, didn't protest. Megure called over some cops to watch the suspects while he and Takagi interviewed them one by one in an office away from the crowd. They'd have to interview everybody anyways, so it was a good start whether they'd actually done anything or not.

"Excuse me," Kyle said to Megure. "Hannah wants to ask the suspects a specific question that she believes will help the investigation. The question is in English, and won't really interfere with anything."

Megure thought about it, but couldn't really find any reason to say no. The only real issue he could think of was why the girl didn't ask the question herself. "You can ask one question per suspect," he replied, giving in.

Megure, Takagi, Conan, Kyle, and the suspect went into the borrowed office and shut the door. "So, who are you and what are you doing here?" Megure asked the first suspect, the punk. The guy, Ejiri Yamada, passed over a business card, proving he was a mechanic and owned his own shop. "I was meeting a girl here, all right? She came into my shop to get her bike fixed, and we hit it off. Today was supposed to be our first date. We were supposed to meet at 9, but she never showed up. I've been up here sulking ever since. I was thinking of leaving and getting a beer when the murder happened."

"We'll need the number of the girl you were meeting to confirm your story," said Megure. The guy nodded, looked through his phone, and showed them the number.

Then Kyle spoke up. "By the way, " _Disculpe, pero ¿hablas a Inglés?_ "

The suspect looked at Kyle like he was crazy. "What're you doing, speaking that foreign gibberish to me?"

"Guess that answers that," Kyle replied.

Next was the nerdy guy. "I'm Yakiwa Seiji," he said, introducing himself. "I'm a ronin who's failed twice to get into Beika University. I came up today to get out of my room and to go out and do something. It's better than constantly studying."

"So you're here alone?" Megure asked.

"Yeah, and I live alone in a small apartment. My address is…" He took a piece of offered paper and wrote down his contact information.

Then Kyle asked his question again. " _Disculpe, pero ¿hablas a Inglés?_ "

" _I do, actually_ ," he responded in English. " _Are_ _you_ _an_ _American_?"

" _What, you couldn't tell by my accent?_ " he laughed.

Megure looked between the two of them. "What did he say?"

"He just said he knows English," Kyle replied. "That's all I needed to know."

Megure, not seeing the point to the question, had the third suspect, Makoto Kumada, brought in.

"I was waiting here for my wife and kids," he told the Inspector, handing over his business card. "We've been having marriage trouble lately, so I came early to scout out the Tower and see what they'd be interested in. You can call her and check! We had plans today!"

"Don't worry, we'll confirm your plans," said Takagi.

" _Disculpe, pero ¿hablas a Inglés?_ " Kyle asked.

The guy stared at Kyle. "What language is that? I know English, and that's not English."

"Don't worry; you still answered my question," Kyle replied.

After the suspect left, Megure and Takagi began discussing the case, with Conan, Hannah, and Kyle on scene to eavesdrop.

"If you ask me, they're all suspicious," said Megure. "Who hangs around Touto Tower for half a day by themselves, anyways?" He turned to the foreigners. "And what was up with that weird question?"

Hannah responded at once. "The question actually had nothing to do with the case. I was trying to determine if the Paint Man was someone I'd encountered before. That's why I didn't ask them myself; if he _was_ someone I'd met before, he would've recognized me. The trick to the question was that Kyle asked the question 'Do you know English?' in Spanish, not English. The only suspect who didn't realize the language switch, the nerd, is the Paint Man. You can trust me on that."

"That's an awfully big leap," said Takagi.

"Maybe, but he's the only one that most decidedly came by himself, with no one we can contact for an alibi. A serial killer would usually lie about where he's going or not say anything, and most certainly wouldn't make plans to meet with someone, whether those plans fell through or not. So here's my suggestion: confirm their alibis and go through their belongings, but don't let them leave. Just keep a close eye on the nerd."

XXX

As the cops did what Hannah asked, Conan took the opportunity to talk to her. "How come you think the Paint Man is someone you know?" he asked curiously. Hannah had deliberately stayed out of the suspects' sight while they'd been transported to questioning.

"Half the reason I came to Japan is to track someone down, a criminal with a flair for the theatric. The Paint Man's methods absolutely scream they're one and the same. Problem is, he's a master of accent, disguise, and learning new languages. That was the purpose of the question; he knows so many languages he'd automatically respond in English when presented with that question."

"So you've tried to catch him before?"

Hannah clenched her fists. "You'd better believe it. He did something to me several years ago that I will NEVER forgive him for. My friends and I have nabbed him before, but he escaped and used his disguise prowess to evade me. His disguises are better than anything Kaitou Kid could pull off and are basically flawless. That's why I had to trick him into revealing himself. I just don't understand why he'd come _here_ , though."

"So you're here specifically to catch him?"

"Pretty much, although I've always wanted to come here, so it was the perfect excuse. I even met some people I really wanted to meet!"

"Some people? Who?"

"Let's see," said Hannah, counting off on her fingers. "First was Masumi Sera. Then there was Shinichi Kudo. I'd like to meet Heiji Hattori, Sagaru Hakuba, and Kaitou Kid, too, but I doubt that'll happen. Oh, and I'd like to meet Tooru Amuro and Subaru Okiya, too."

Considering that there was no way she could've met Shinichi, that basically confirmed she knew who he was. "That's a lot of people to meet. Is there any pattern?"

"You bet!" Hannah exclaimed. "First there are the Gosho Boys! They're really smart and really awesome! Sera inspired me to become a detective. And Amuro and Akai are just really cool to begin with! Why do you…" She suddenly stopped dead in her tracks, getting a deer in the headlights expression.

'Did she just…' Conan thought in horror. After seeing that book earlier, he had plenty of questions, but he decided on one, just one, to throw her off. "So you said earlier you've met Shinichi-niichan, right? When was that? I think Ran-neechan would like to know when he visited. And I think I'd know if he was in town or not." He gave her a sharp, adult-like stare.

Hannah stared back at him a moment before sighing in defeat. "Believe it or not, but I'm actually pretty good at keeping secrets, normally. But I guess my fangirliness is coming out so much it's just impossible to control. When'd you get suspicious?"

"First you called us by name before we introduced yourself, you asked for my suspenders without having any reason to know I had them, you had that book of my life in your bag, and just now you called Subaru-san by his real name. There's really only one conclusion to draw from that, no matter how impossible it seems."

"Wow, I dropped a lot of clues didn't I? Would you believe me if I said I'm normally a pretty good detective?"

"Maybe," said Conan honestly, earning him a reproachful look.

"Still, though, I feel bad about acting weird. But we'd all act weird if we got to meet our childhood idols. Think of it like this: if _you_ had the chance to meet Sherlock Holmes, in the flesh, how would _you_ react? Not like an actor that's played Holmes, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but Holmes himself."

As usual, she had a point. "So, where are you from _actually_?" Conan asked.

"I'm from America, like I said, just a different version of it. Oh, and I'm technically from the future, too. The day I left was June 9, 2040. So I'm really seventeen, I'm really American, and I'm really a detective. But enough about me. I'm technically not supposed to be telling you any of this. If Kyle finds out, he'll flip out, _again_. I don't really like getting chewed out."

'Who _would_?' Conan thought.

Chiba exited from the elevator, notebook in hand. "Looks like Chiba's found everything we needed," Hannah remarked.

She was right. The suspects' belongings had been searched and their alibis had been confirmed. It turned out the punk guy's girl had a child from a previous marriage who had gotten sick, which is why she'd skipped the date. The older man's family was waiting at the base of the Tower impatiently, and his wife had given the police an earful about not letting them in. That left the ronin, just as Hannah had said. The problem was that there was still no proof.

"All right, let's go question him again," said Megure, motioning to an officer to bring him over. Again, Hannah stayed out of his sight, but she took a clay jar of some kind out of her bag, eyeing the suspect menacingly. Conan was surprised since he hadn't seen such a large jar in there when he'd checked.

"You want something else?" the guy asked calmly, slouching in his chair.

"Yes, you're the only one who was here at the same time as the victim, but who doesn't have a good reason for being here," said Megure. "Also, you answered one of our questions weird."

"Weird? What did I say?"

Conan used that as an excuse to get involved. "When the foreign guy asked you if you spoke English, he asked you the question in Spanish, not English. How come you didn't notice that?"

The suspect twitched visibly. "Well, he asked if I spoke English, so I responded in English. What's your point?"

"The point is you didn't notice the language switch because you _couldn't_ notice it," said Hannah, appearing behind Conan with the jar in hand. The guy jumped out of his chair like he'd sat down on hot coals, but he recovered quickly.

"You're saying I didn't notice his language switch? Do you think I have bad hearing?" he laughed.

But Hannah didn't laugh. "Universal Translator," she began. "It allows someone to understand any language they hear and respond in the other person's native language. So when you heard him ask "Do you speak English?" you assumed he was asking you in English because you didn't hear the Spanish, _my lord_." She said this last part in a very condescending and loathsome manner.

Conan didn't understand what she was talking about, and neither did the police. But something she said must've meant something to the guy, because he completely dropped the innocent act. "Huh, so it really is you. I thought you were just a lookalike until you mentioned my former employment. Well, I should've known _you'd_ be behind a question like that." Despite incriminating himself, he remained calm, spinning the chair around and sitting on it backwards, the back of the chair to his chest. "How much did you pay that guy to say that?"

"Nothing, actually," Hannah replied, taking the lid off of the clay jar. The Paint Man stared at it, his eyes never leaving it. "I just couldn't risk you fleeing before I ID'd you, which is why I had him ask it. Tell me, though, why are you staring at my jar like that? Don't tell me you're afraid of an empty jar." She proved it was empty by turning it upside down.

The police looked between Hannah and the suspect. "You know each other?" Megure asked, astonished.

"Let's just say Mr. Paint Man here kept me locked up for a couple of days a few years ago, and I didn't like it much," said Hannah sweetly, barely concealing her malice.

The Paint Man smirked. "That's true, of course, but that doesn't explain what you're doing here. I'm in disguise, and I was a world away from you. And why do you have that jar? I thought your lover had it."

"Uh, I'm here because I took a plane?" Hannah said in mock confusion. "And I have the jar because I borrowed it." To the police, she said, "Now, can we arrest him, please? Before he kills us all? And make sure to give him this drink." She reached into her bag and removed a can of soda with no label on it.

"I don't feel like killing anyone else today," said the Paint Man, grinning broadly. "But I also don't feel like getting caught, either, least of all by you. Not again. So goodbye Hannah Matthews!" With that, he stood up suddenly, picking up the chair and waving it threateningly to keep the police away. Then he reached down his shirt, pulled out a flash bomb, and dropped it, forcing everyone to cover their eyes. While they were stunned, he shoved himself through the door and they heard the sound of shattering glass. When Conan regained his eyesight, he saw a giant hole in the nearest window, proving he'd escaped outside.

"Oi, Haibara!" Conan yelled into his badge. "Did anyone just jump off the Tower?"

"No. A window shattered, but nobody jumped. Although there _is_ a guy with a parachute."

Conan peered through the hole and saw the Paint Man parachuting away. He knew it was him because his parachute had a picture of a paint can printed on it. And a rude American gesture involving the middle finger. Megure got on his phone to get a cordon set up, which was basically their only hope at this point.

'The _real_ question here is Hannah-san's history with him and where he managed to hide that parachute.' Conan thought. He stood at the window silently as the Paint Man disappeared into the distance.

* * *

I warned you the Paint Man would be a pain to apprehend. Hannah's past history with him comes from _The Search for the Scrolls_ , which you'll need to read for yourself to find out the details on, should I ever get it published. That book took place when Hannah was 14, so it's been a few years.

Next chapter, the Haibara subplot resumes, but Haibara's a lot less open about her intentions now. So no more PDAs. I wonder what she's gonna do? XD

As usual, drop a favorite and follow the story if you haven't already, and please review if you have something to say!


	8. Ran Gets Super Mad

After all the mayhem last chapter, most of this is pretty tame by comparison, apart from Ran getting super mad. The Haibara subplot starts picking up steam again, too!

* * *

Chapter Eight

After the Touto Tower fiasco, the police had really started cracking down. They'd taken Hannah to the station to question her thoroughly about the Paint Man, and had locked down the Tower while they investigated the scene and looked for clues. Conan had not been allowed to witness the questioning, so he had no idea what she'd said.

They'd also raided the suspect's apartment, where they'd found the suspect, but he'd been dead for a week from a gunshot wound to the head. That meant he'd been replaced. The gun and the paintbrush had been recovered, and the motive for the victim going there had been uncovered; he'd been her tutor to help her with entrance exams, and the Paint Man had replaced him and asked her on a date. It was still anybody's guess as to how he'd actually gotten her to go up to the very top of the Tower, but an autopsy showed she was high on PCP at the time.

As to the suspect's actual whereabouts, they'd had no leads. The parachute had been recovered from a nearby park and somebody had tried to flush a fat suit and a latex mask down a toilet in a nearby public restroom, but that was all they'd found. The Paint Man himself had escaped to continue his crime spree, and nobody particularly liked that thought much.

In other news, the police had put together a dedicated taskforce to catch the guy before he did anything else. Conan had listened in to their meetings, but he hadn't found anything out, since they were just as stumped as he was.

There was another problem apart from the Paint Man, though: Haibara. She was the reason he hadn't been able to fully concentrate on the case. She'd eventually given up on the flirting and the clinginess, but she was still being much more overly friendly than normal, resembling Ayumi or Ran rather than herself. It was pretty unnerving and _very_ distracting, to say the least.

The Monday after the Tower incident, Conan walked into class to find Ayumi and Haibara having an intense debate about something. What was odd wasn't that they were talking, since they did that a lot. No, what was surprising was that Haibara was sitting on Ayumi's desk the same way Ayumi usually sat on hers.

Conan resisted the urge to listen in to the conversation, since Haibara was still creeping him out, and sat down in his seat as normal. Mitsuhiko and Genta didn't have any reason not to talk to them, though, and so decided to get involved.

"What're you talking about?" Mitsuhiko asked, plopping his bag on his desk.

"Oh, Ai-chan was telling me about this show she really likes!" said Ayumi. "Have you ever heard of _Dexter_?"

Both boys shook their heads. Conan had heard of it, though, and since he knew what it was about, he quickly got involved before the kids tried to look any further into it. "Hey, how was _Kamen Yaiba_ last night?" Conan asked, butting into the conversation.

" _Kamen Yaiba_ didn't air anything good last night," said Genta. "Are you really a Yaiba fan?"

"Yeah, a real Yaiba fan would know last night's episode is one of the worst of the worst!" said Mitsuhiko.

"Hey, give him a break!" Ayumi exclaimed. "Conan-kun hasn't been a fan nearly as long as us, so it's OK if he doesn't know that."

"So? Why are you barging into our conversation?" Haibara asked, staring him down.

"It's because you're recommending adult shows to them!" he retorted.

"That's what you've got a problem with? It's a good show. We're all detectives right? So a crime show would be good background, right? It's like reading _A Study in Scarlet_ fifty times before your seventh birthday. Speaking of that, there was _way_ too much focus away from Holmes in that book. It made it painful to read."

Yet again, Conan was caught off guard. "When did you read _A Study in Scarlet_?"

"Last year," she replied. "Holmes made you look like an idiot by comparison." She smirked evilly at him.

'Great, she's toying with me,' Conan thought. How was he supposed to focus on the Paint Man with Haibara acting so weird and constantly throwing him for a loop? And after this latest incident, he was going to have to constantly watch her to make sure she didn't do anything bad to the kids, or to anyone else. That was how weird she was acting.

That meant, as much as he hated it, he was going to have to hand off the Paint Man case to someone else temporarily while he dealt with the Haibara situation. Pulling out his phone, he sent a quick, reluctant text asking for assistance. 'Hopefully that'll help the situation,' he thought, putting the phone away. And maybe he could ask for help about the Haibara situation, too.

XXX

Masumi Sera was sitting in class, feeling bored. Classes had just resumed from lunch, so the class was pretty subdued. About five minutes into class, though, she noticed Ran receiving a text.

"What is it?" Sonoko whispered as Ran dropped her pencil to check it quietly.

"I don't recognize the number," said Ran. She opened the message and visibly stiffened from shock, her face contorting.

Sera knew that reaction wasn't good. She'd seen that face in the mirror quite a few times in her life: rage, combined with shock, horror, and sadness. Sonoko leaned over and got a good look at the text. "Whoa, what the frick?" she whispered, staring between the display and Ran.

"Suzuki, sit down!" the teacher reprimanded her. Sonoko glared at him and made a 'Tch' noise before sitting back down.

"Ran-chan, what's the matter?" Sera whispered hesitantly. Ran, now seething from rage, passed her the phone wordlessly. The message was simple, but got to the point: _Shinichi-san really is a nice guy, isn't he? He's even skipping school to be with me! A younger guy, with me! Isn't that nice?_

It was way too personal to be a normal spam text, so either it was a bad prank or someone was deliberately trying to annoy Ran. And by the look on Ran's face, it was working perfectly. "The next time I see Shinichi, he'll have a lot of explaining to do!" Ran said furiously, attracting anxious glances from her classmates.

Then there was trouble. As Sera watched, the message she was reading suddenly deleted itself. That meant the culprit was smart enough to not leave an obvious trail. In other words, whether or not the girl's claims were true, someone had serious beef with Ran.

Ran didn't get any more texts that afternoon, but the day's surprises were far from over. As the three girls were preparing to leave, a freshman girl in the karate club suddenly raced into the room to talk to Ran. "Ran-sempai, there's trouble!" the girl exclaimed, looking so panicky she was about a moment from fainting.

"Mari-chan, what's the matter?" Ran asked concernedly.

"It's just…a girl just put something in Kudo-sempai's locker!" the girl exclaimed, her eyes wide. "She was dressed in a Teitan uniform, but I've never seen her before, and she looked a little too old to be a student here! So I was thinking…" Ran suddenly put a hand on her shoulder, shutting her up instantly.

"Mari-chan, show me," said Ran dangerously. The two girls quickly raced out of the room as fast as they could go.

"Come on, Sera-chan!" said Sonoko, gesturing for Sera to follow. They left the room and followed the other two girls to the entrance.

"Out of my way," Ran said dangerously, forcing her way through the crowd. "I said MOVE!" she told a particularly stubborn boy who didn't move quickly enough. After shoving him aside, she strode straight to Shinichi's locker and whipped open the door. As she looked at the contents, she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Ran, what is it?" Sonoko asked, catching up with her.

"…Nothing," said Ran, removing the slippers and thoroughly examining the locker before replacing them in annoyance.

"No way, we _saw_ her next to the locker!" Mari exclaimed, looking shocked. "She reached in and did something. I ran to get you immediately, Ran-sempai!"

Ran slammed the door shut, seething, and kicked the lockers as hard as she could, silencing everybody nearby. "Did ANYBODY see a girl they didn't recognize here just now?"

Kyle, who had been nearby talking with Katie, spoke up. "Yeah, there was a girl at that locker a minute ago. She went through your locker too."

Ran whipped open her own locker to find a letter in there, written on pink construction paper with a smiley face sticker on the outside. Opening it, she read the contents, her face contorting in rage even more than before. Then she shoved the paper in Sonoko's face. "Read this!" she said angrily.

Sera craned her neck and saw there was just one line on it, written in crayon: _Phase One Complete_ , accompanied by a drawing of a heart. A second later, Ran tore up the paper into little pieces, dropped them all over the floor, and stalked out of the school.

"Ran-sempai, what about karate club? And your shoes? You shouldn't go outside in your slippers!" Mari called, chasing after her, holding Ran's shoes which she'd forgotten in her rage.

"What happened?" Katie asked, approaching Sera and Sonoko.

"Somebody's trolling her about Shinichi-kun," Sonoko explained.

"Did you see the girl that put the note in Ran-chan's locker?" Sera asked.

"Uh, let's see," said Katie, thinking. "She was around my height, with short hair cut in a bob. She looked like she might not be all Japanese though. She came in from outside, went straight to those two lockers, and then left again immediately. She must've been here before. Did you see her, Kyle? Have you seen her around?"

"Nope," was all he said, looking highly uncomfortable. He didn't really look like he wanted to get involved in the conversation. "Sonoko-san, shouldn't you go talk to Ran-san?"

"Yeah, I'd better," said Sonoko. "She might do something she regrets otherwise. Katie-chan, can you take care of Kyle-san for us?"

"Sure!" she said brightly.

"Also, Sera-chan," Sonoko continued. "I have a feeling that girl isn't going to give up on annoying Ran. Will you track her down and tell her to stop?"

"I'll try," Sera promised her. With that, Sonoko changed into her shoes and raced out after Ran.

Sera swung her schoolbag over her shoulder. "Still, who would think it's a good idea to annoy Ran-chan like that? Surely they'd know she's good at karate if they know her phone number and where she goes to school."

"Wait, they _called_ her?" Katie asked, astonished. "Wow, she must really be a stalker of Ran's boyfriend if she went out of her way to call her and leave a note." She glanced at Kyle and suddenly she broke out in a broad grin. " _Kyle, do you think Hannah could assist Sera?_ " she asked Kyle in English.

Kyle looked surprised by that suggestion. " _Hannah's busy with the serial killer right now, Katie. She'd throw a fit if…_ "

" _Who'd throw a fit, now?_ " somebody suddenly asked. Hannah had approached them silently, making all three of them jump. " _What's the problem?_ "

" _Another girl has been annoying Ran about Shinichi,_ " Sera replied, before telling her the story of what had happened. As she explained, Hannah's eyes got wider and wider.

" _Wow, so it's that bad? Then you'd better believe I'll help!_ " Hannah replied, looking determined.

" _I thought you were looking into the Paint Man_ ," Kyle reminded her, glancing at her sharply.

" _I still am, but I could use the distraction,_ " said Hannah, glaring at him.

But Kyle shook his head. " _Not this time, Hannah. Ran can take care of herself._ " Hannah gave him a glare, but didn't protest further. They seemed to be having some kind of nonverbal argument. Katie glared daggers at both of them, and Sera had a feeling she knew exactly why.

* * *

So who did Conan call, and who's the mysterious sender? And who's the girl that came to the school? Haibara would know better than to go out in public as an adult, so it can't be her, right?

The whole Hannah/Kyle/Katie situation will come to a head later on, and I know exactly how that'll get settled, too. Another OC is going to show up later, in about 3-5 chapters or so, to shake up the whole dynamic.

Next chapter the Paint Man chooses his next target and we get to see who Conan called! Look forward to it and be sure to let me know what you think of the story so far! Suggestions are always welcome! ;)


	9. New Ally

Here we get the first villainous POV I think I've ever done, fanfiction or otherwise. It was a bit of a challenge since I needed to convey his thought processes and actions without giving away too many spoilers. I think I did an OK job with it. Let me know if it's good or not, OK?

* * *

Chapter Nine

The Paint Man leaned against the wall, staring around the corner at his quarry. It was a young office lady, approximately 22-25 years old. He didn't know who she was or anything about her; he'd just staked out one of those women-only cars on the subway, disguised as a woman, until he'd identified someone who was alone.

Now, the name 'Paint Man' was obviously just a moniker. He'd had a lot of those over the years. He'd chosen Japan for his crime spree because it had an overpopulation problem and he figured he was doing the government a favor. And the crime rates in this particular version of Japan were a lot higher than normal, so he could operate with a lot more impunity. What was that expression? Hide a leaf in a forest?

The woman he was following turned into an apartment building, grabbing her mail from the front desk before inputting a code and passing through the inner door.

OK, so now he knew where she lived. That was a start. The problem was getting inside. He didn't have unlimited magic anymore, thanks to the machinations of some of Hannah's friends, so that meant he'd have to be careful to not use it up. That's right, he used magic. Well, it was technically super-advanced science, but to the people of the 21st century it was indistinguishable from magic. Magic had a limit, though, so he preferred to conserve it whenever possible, which is why he'd parachuted out of the Tower and used a flash bomb rather than, say, just teleporting to Osaka or something.

The reason he was even on a killing spree to begin with was to send a message. Not to the Japanese police; he didn't have any beef with them. No, there were people with even more authority than the Japanese police or the government. That was who the message was for. He wasn't truly evil, though; he only killed people who deserved it. His next 'present' for them would prove to them once and for all that no, it was not a coincidence he knew a lot about them; he knew everything about them. Going to their headquarters would be a suicide mission, so he was trying to draw them out.

'Now, how about I go buy some paint?' he thought, turning away from the building and walking away. 'Today's colors: orange and white.'

XXX

Heiji Hattori and Kazuha Toyama got off the Shinkansen, each feeling ready for an adventure. Heiji had received a text from Conan asking for assistance with a big case, the Paint Man case he'd seen on the news. Now he was in Tokyo, he could rub Conan's nose in it if he was able to solve it before him.

Their first order of business was to go to the Mouri Detective Agency to get the intel on the case. After leaving the station, they hopped on a bus to make their way over there.

"I can't wait to see Ran-chan again!" Kazuha said cheerfully. "I wonder if she knows we're coming?"

'She probably doesn't,' Heiji thought, staring out the window. 'Kudo isn't really one to ask for help, so it must be serious if he's asking me.'

The bus stopped to let more people on. These people included several students from Ran's high school, but not Ran herself. One of the students, who rushed on at the last moment as the door was closing, was a girl wearing sunglasses and a hat, with her short hair tucked up into the hat. She stopped for a moment on seeing Heiji and Kazuha, but eventually moved back on to a seat at the very back of the bus. As the bus moved away, neither of them noticed Masumi Sera arriving at the bus stop completely out of breath.

The girl looked familiar to Heiji, but he couldn't place her face. Kazuha was looking at her too, but it was for a different reason than Heiji. "What's up with that hairstyle? A girl as pretty as her should know better than to wear a baseball cap like that!"

"So what? Some people don't care about looks!" said Heiji.

"Yeah, I know that, but look! She has a Prada cover on her phone! Why would someone that doesn't care about looks use that?"

Heiji glanced at the girl, who was busy texting and not paying them any attention. He didn't know much about flashy stuff, but he knew from experience that Kazuha was probably right. "So if she cares so much about looking nice, but isn't looking nice right now, does that mean she's hiding from someone?" Heiji speculated. He noticed that she didn't have a normal schoolbag with her; instead she carried an orange child's backpack, one that grade school students would use.

He didn't know if his speculations were right or not, but Kazuha took them as fact, because a moment later she'd gotten up to go talk to the girl. "Excuse me, but are you OK?" she asked, taking hold of one of the ceiling straps and standing over her.

The girl looked up at her in surprise. "Yes, I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"Well, you look like you're hiding from someone," said Kazuha, sounding very concerned.

The girl sighed. "OK, you're right about that. There was this girl at school who thought I was making moves on her boyfriend, so I had to bolt before she tried to kill me."

"Oh you poor thing!" said Kazuha, patting her on the shoulder. "I'd hate to have to go through something like that!"

"Please, don't touch me," the girl said, staring at her, making Kazuha jerk back in surprise. That was when Heiji butted into the conversation.

"I hate to be a bother, but there's one thing about your story that doesn't make sense," he began. "If you're really a high school student, why do you have a child's backpack?"

The girl now looked decidedly nervous. "I'm holding onto it for my friend's sister," she replied. "I had to leave my bag at school because I left so quickly. This is the only one I had the time to grab."

"Well, if you're really a student, then you wouldn't mind showing us your ID card, would you?" Heiji challenged her.

"Heiji!" Kazuha exclaimed. "Stop harassing her!"

'Tch,' Heiji thought in annoyance. 'Just as I was getting somewhere.'

"Sorry about him!" Kazuha apologized to the girl as she dragged Heiji away. As they sat down, Kazuha remarked, "Still, that girl did seem familiar, didn't she Heiji?"

"Yeah, she did," Heiji confirmed. As they neared Beika Block 2, the girl pulled the cord and bolted off the bus. Heiji would've loved to investigate her more, but he had a job to do right now, and that was catching the serial killer.

After another five minutes or so, they finally arrived at their stop, so they got off the bus and headed to their final destination. "You know, Ran-chan called me a while ago to say that she was going to be hosting a foreign exchange student sometime soon. I wonder if they're here?" Kazuha continued chatting, barely noticing that Heiji was preoccupied with other things.

Heiji announced himself loudly when he opened the door. "The Great Detective of the West, Hattori Heiji-sama, is in the house!" The only problem was that there was only one person in the room: Kogoro.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Kogoro asked, shocked.

"We're visitin'!" Kazuha supplied, poking her head around the door. "Is Ran-chan home?"

"Something happened at her school today that made her really mad. She's upstairs right now, but I'd be careful around her." Hearing this, Kazuha immediately dashed out the door and headed up the stairs.

"What happened? Is it Kudo?" Heiji asked.

Kogoro scowled. "Apparently he's with another girl, the jerk. The girl sent a text to Ran to brag about it, and that's why I'm down here away from her."

Heiji knew better than to believe that. "So where is Ku…Conan-kun?"

"Huh, the kid? Probably at Agasa-hakase's. That little girlfriend of his has been acting weird lately."

"Girlfriend?"

"You know, that little girl that stays with the Professor? The mature one that makes my skin crawl? That's her."

Heiji still doubted that what Kogoro was saying was true, but he figured Conan would be able to tell him the truth. "Great, then! Tell Kazuha that I'm going to see him!" he exclaimed, before heading out the door.

XXX

"Haibara hasn't come home yet?" Conan asked Agasa concernedly. Agasa shook his head. "That's really odd. She left school the moment the bell rang, so where did she go?"

On cue, Haibara entered the house. "I'm home," she said dully, sweating profusely and looking very tired.

"Welcome back, Ai-kun!" said Agasa, smiling gently.

Haibara took a look at Conan and stopped walking. "What are _you_ doing here? Come to check on me again?"

"I was just a little worried about you," Conan admitted.

"How many times do I have to tell you guys that I'm FINE?" Haibara asked loudly, dumping her bag on the floor loudly. "I just had some errands to run is all."

"Really," said Conan, not buying it. She didn't even have a shopping bag. Just then, the doorbell rang. Agasa went to answer it as Haibara went into the bathroom, brushing roughly by Conan.

"Hey old man!" a loud, teenage voice said in a Kansai accent.

'Wow, he got here quick,' Conan thought.

"How've you been holdin' up, Kudo?" Heiji asked, spotting Conan and making his way over.

"Good enough," Conan responded. "I've just got a lot of stuff going on right now."

"Yeah, the Paint Man case, right? It's really interesting. Just why does he paint his victims' faces? How does he choose them? And what's the meanin' behind the paint colors?"

"That's the funny part. And he seems to know that foreign high school detective. I don't know how or why, though."

"Foreign detective?"

"Yeah, her name is Hannah Matthews-san, and she's one of the foreign exchange students at Ran's school. She reminds me a lot of Sera in how she acts, but I don't know much about her. But that's not the only thing. Haibara volunteered to investigate her, but after one day, she started acting really…well, _weird_. I've had to keep an eye on her so she doesn't do anything bad. That's why I called you, Hattori. I need someone to take over the case while I deal with Haibara. I don't ask this lightly, either."

Heiji was quiet for a moment, taking in what he'd said. "Well, when you put it that way, I'd be happy to help, Kudo," said Heiji. "But there's actually another problem you probably don't know about."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Well, apparently someone texted your neechan's phone earlier saying they were 'with Shinichi-sama', if you know what I mean. Your girl's been bouncing off the walls ever since in rage!"

Conan felt a ball drop in the pit of his stomach. "I'd better call Ran and sort this out," he decided, taking out his phone and his voice changer.

"That'd be a bad idea," said a new voice. Haibara had just emerged from the bathroom, wiping her hands with a handkerchief. "Think about it: if some girl sent that message, the only way _you_ would know about it would be if you really _were_ with her. It'll only make Ran-chan more suspicious."

"Would you stop calling her 'Ran-chan?' It sounds weird," Conan told her.

"Oh, really? I kind of like it," she replied, walking away towards the basement.

"See what I mean?" Conan whispered to Heiji. "She's acting weird. It's creeping everyone out, and some of the stuff she does is dangerous. The other day, she was taking a hammer to all her APTX-4869 research and would've destroyed it if I hadn't caught her in the act. That's why I've got to keep an eye on her. Think of it like this: if Kazuha suddenly got _way_ too clingy, started chewing people out for silly reasons, and wasn't all happy and peppy anymore, would _you_ be able to concentrate on cases?"

Well, that did it. "Kudo, I'll take care of this for you," said Heiji determinedly, and they shook hands.

* * *

If you didn't guess the person he contacted for help was Heiji, well now you know. Bunch of bombs dropped in this chapter, including the identity of Ran's stalker and the Paint Man's motive (partially). These 'authorities' he mentions are not from the Conan-verse, so look forward to figuring out who they are. One question, though; all the clues point to the culprit for Ran's stalker, but how did she appear on the bus one way and at home another? Perhaps you should read some of my other fanfiction for ideas. ;)

As for my fanfiction writing, it's getting kind of disheartening for me that the Conan fanbase is really quiet right now. I'm lucky if I get two reviews per chapter, and the actual forums are pretty quiet, too. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to finish this story, write Minami Edogawa Part 5, and then I'm going to focus on my original writing again, and my schoolwork. Maybe I'll hop fandoms or write more for Conan in the future if the fanbase becomes more active.


	10. Ultimatum

If you hadn't guessed by the noticeable lack of updates last week, I'm just coming back from spring break. Though since I didn't hear any complaints from anybody, maybe nobody cared?

This chapter keeps up with the Paint Man's next crime, shown from his POV at first before switching away. He also IDs a new set of antagonists that are also crossing over. They'll take a more active role in future chapters after what he does here.

* * *

Chapter Ten

"The heck is this?" someone shouted, waking Kazuha up from her sleep. She'd spent the night in Ran's room, as per usual, although having Conan in there as well was a change from normal. She opened her eyes and saw Ran staring at her phone with a look of rage.

"What's the matter, Ran-chan?" Kazuha asked as the door burst open and Kogoro and Heiji ran in.

Ran, fuming, showed her the phone. The text read, 'I don't suppose I have to explain where _I_ was last night! ;)'

"It's the same sender?" Kazuha asked, staring at it.

Kogoro snatched it up and read it over. "What…it's just that girl again. Quit scaring us like that." He gave Ran the phone back and he and Heiji left the room. Conan tried to stay, but Kogoro pulled him out by the collar, growling, "You need to get to school."

Kyle poked his head around the door. "What's all the noise about?" he asked curiously, yawning.

"That… _girl_ sent me another text!" Ran said through gritted teeth.

"May I see?" Kyle asked. Ran passed over the phone wordlessly. "Hmm…" he said. "If you'll let me borrow this until it's time for school, I can contact a friend of mine to try and trace the number."

"Oh, it just deleted itself again!" Ran said, annoyed.

"Maybe so, but I can still try," Kyle reassured her. "Will you let me?"

Ran had nothing to lose, so she passed it over. "You're Kyle-san, right?" Kazuha asked cheerfully. "I didn't get a chance to meet you yesterday! I'm Toyama Kazuha, Ran-chan's friend! Nice to meet you!"

"Uh, same here," said Kyle. "Aren't you visiting from out of town, though? Don't you have school?"

"Don't worry about that!" she said, brushing him off. "Ran-chan's stalker is a lot more important than that!" She'd also arranged for her friends to take notes for her, so she wasn't missing _that_ much. She was also a good student, so there was no chance she'd be branded a delinquent, either. Although since she was here with Heiji, people might get the wrong idea, which might cause problems…

Kyle left while she was lost in thought. "So what are you going to do here, Kazuha-chan?" Ran asked.

"I'm helping Heiji, of course! You just can't trust him to do anything right without me!"

"Are you sure you just don't want some alone time with Hattori-kun?" Ran teased.

"Uh, maybe just a bit," Kazuha admitted.

XXX

The Paint Man put the finishing touches on his latest work. He didn't enjoy killing innocent people, but he had lucked out this time because this woman had turned out to be embezzling money from her office. He looked over her face, painted white with crisscrossing orange stripes.

The problem right now was that it was the middle of the day, and he couldn't afford to wait until that evening to place the corpse. After all, today was the last day of the month, and he wanted _their_ meeting tomorrow to start off with a bang. He'd slipped into the girl's building early that morning after getting his supplies by raking his hands down the buzzer buttons until someone let him in without checking who he was. Then he'd camped out on the girl's floor until she emerged, at which point he'd used chloroform on her and dragged her inside.

See, he had a plan, and that involved the girl still being alive. So she wasn't dead…yet. He had other plans for her, which she'd find out as soon as she woke up.

As it happened, that time was now. The woman, who was tied to a chair in front of her desk, opened her eyes and glanced around anxiously.

"Hello, there," said the Paint Man, swiveling her chair around so he was staring at her. She looked at him fearfully, and probably would've started screaming if he hadn't duct taped her mouth shut. "We've never met, but I'm sure you've heard of me. The media has given me the moniker 'The Paint Man' because I paint people's faces. That's right, I painted your face. Care to see?" He reached into her purse, pulled out her makeup compact, and used its mirror to show her her face.

Satisfied, he snapped the compact shut and dropped it back in her purse. "Now, I'm going to give you some instructions, which you're going to follow to the letter. If you don't do it, I'll kill you immediately and find another poor girl to do it for me. So unless you want another girl to suffer this fate, you'd better do what I say. Comply, and who knows? I might not kill you!"

The Paint Man turned to the computer and began fiddling with it. "It'll be a little while until I'm ready, so here's something for you to do." He took a piece of paper from his pocket and taped it up in her line of sight. "Read through this and prepare to recite it. It's my ultimatum."

XXX

Heiji and Kazuha were at the park where the Paint Man's belongings had been dumped after he'd parachuted out of Touto Tower. "Yeah, I found the parachute on the grass over there," an employee told Heiji, pointing in the appropriate direction. The area in question was roped off with crime scene tape. Kogoro was investigating the case as well, but he'd gone off to do his own investigation somewhere else.

"Did you see anybody suspicious? Not just the criminal, but anybody at all?"

"Hmm…" the guy thought. "Well, the guy got out of his harness and jumped down about ten feet from the ground. I've never seen anything like it. He ran into the public restroom and never came out. Of course, the cops found a fat suit and latex mask in there, so he could've been anybody that came out after that. It was a nice day, so there was a lot of traffic. As for anyone else suspicious, I didn't see anybody. There were so many people gawking at the parachute that nobody really stood out."

'No wonder they can't catch this guy; he's like a ghost,' Heiji thought. 'And he's crazy-prepared. Although if he had a parachute, why didn't he just jump off the top instead of climbing down through the tower? Was it his last resort or was he just that confident he wouldn't get caught?'

Kazuha had been busy conversing with Ran via texting and hadn't been paying them any attention. Out of the blue, she started saying, "Heiji, come look at this!" while tugging incessantly on his sleeve.

"What is it?" Heiji asked, turning to look at her.

"It's…it's _him_!" she said, showing him the screen. "I was talking to Ran-chan when it suddenly started playing this video!"

'Is this…a livestream?' Heiji thought, turning up the volume. In the upper left corner the words 'Paint Man Live' were written in English.

The girl on the video, whose face was painted white with orange stripes, began speaking. "My name is Ibiri Youka and I am here on behalf of the Paint Man, who has forced me to say these words without my consent. As I read the words on this paper, he would like me to tell some specific people who are watching that my face being painted like this is no coincidence. He knows who you are, and he does not approve of your methods. The Paint Man has hijacked every Internet-connected device in the Kanto region to deliver this message, so let him say it now. Provided that the specific people he mentioned earlier get their act together and stop messing with certain…VIPs, he will not commit any more murders. The Paint Man is fully aware that 99.76% of the viewers of this stream will have no idea what he is talking about. He appeals to them to riot in the streets so that the people in charge comply with his demands. Otherwise more people will die, _painfully_. The people in charge he is referring to is not the Japanese government, the Japanese police, secret or otherwise, or the Yakuza. You don't know them, but they know who they are. Stand against the Paint Man and watch your empire crumble. This is the Paint Man's ultimatum.'

The girl heaved a sigh of relief before glancing off camera. "Wait, what are you… No! Wait!" The sound of a gunshot rang through the feed as the girl was shot dead. Then the feed cut off and the texting menu reappeared.

"This guy…" said Heiji in a rage, tossing Kazuha's phone back at her and stalking off. "He's crossed the line this time! I'll find you for sure now!"

XXX

"This is the police! Everybody come out with your hands up!" Megure announced as the police burst into the apartment. It hadn't taken long for them to trace the signal and storm the building, but the Paint Man was already long gone.

After checking for intruders, they all put their guns away and examined the scene. "The victim is the apartment owner," Takagi confirmed, checking her wallet. "I think it's safe to say she was coerced into making the broadcast."

"Then look for evidence that guy was here!" Megure exclaimed. "He's already gotten away from us once!"

"Yes sir!" the cops said. They spent a while looking around, but all they found was a handkerchief and a bottle of chloroform in the trash, along with two paint cans and a couple of brushes. Then they found the holy grail: the receipt from when the paint was purchased. Chiba went off at once to the store to confirm it.

"Seems you've got your hands full here," a voice said from the door. Megure spun around and saw it was Heiji, which did not improve his mood.

"Just what are _you_ doing here?" he asked in surprise. "Don't you have school?"

"Kudo asked me to help out with the case, so when I saw his broadcast, I figured I'd keep tabs on the cops to see if you'd track him down. And here you are. So I'll just take a quick look around. May I borrow some gloves?"

He sounded normal, but his tone and the look on his face proved he was deadly serious, moreso even than usual. His friend Kazuha, who was behind him, was also not her usual talkative self. Megure weighed his options, but figured 'why not?' At least he knew Heiji didn't have a grudge against the murderer, unlike that foreign girl. She'd given them a detailed story about how she'd encountered him, but couldn't explain why he was in Japan. They also hadn't been able to confirm her story with the Americans. Megure knew that her being in Tokyo at the same time as the Paint Man was likely no coincidence. About the only useful thing she'd given them was that the Paint Man was one of those crazy people that prepared for everything, no matter how ridiculous, and that was why he'd been able to escape: he'd planned for the slim chance he actually got caught.

"Yeah, you can poke around," he told Heiji. "Although I'm getting tired of teen detectives coming in here. This is the second time in a week."

"Oh? When was the first time?" Heiji asked curiously.

"One of the foreign girls at Ran-kun's school is a detective, so I had to deal with her nosing into things _and_ the language barrier. That was no fun." Heiji gave him an affronted look, but Megure didn't particularly care; he was plenty stressed out and didn't care about being nice.

"Hold on, there's a footprint from the paint!" Heiji remarked. He pointed to a shadowed part of the floor, next to the desk with the computer and, sure enough, there was a footprint.

"Maybe we'll actually catch this guy this time." Megure said hopefully, looking at the footprint.

* * *

OK, now Heiji's mad. Actually, everybody's mad now. After being called out, the antagonists are going to start getting up in everybody's business, which calls for another new character to intervene. This character is also from _The Search for the Scrolls_ , which I've recently retitled _Trapped in Marisia,_ and hates the Paint Man even more than Hannah. And to top it off, she's an expert at both magic and fighting. Hannah cannot use magic. Don't worry, though; anything magical will happen away from the Conan characters, since magic would completely break the Conan series.

Hope you're still enjoying the story! Let me know what you think! :)


	11. Trump Card

This is the chapter where I introduce the final non-Conan character. More info on her at the bottom of the page. I should also probably clarify that the Paint Man, aka Nostrum, is NOT a criminal mastermind, and makes plenty of mistakes. I talk more about him in this chapter, but you'll have to wait for the true explanation about him and Kyle for another time.

Review Response:

All the weirdness just comes from the Paint Man being inexperienced with being sneaky. And Japan is pretty lax when it comes to security due to the low crime rates, so it's not unheard of for people to be let in if they don't know someone else, especially if someone's dressed as a repairman or something (I never specified how he was dressed, so that's my bad). I'm going to try to give more screentime to Conan characters, and you'll see some of that later on in this chapter. I get that no one knows much about the other characters, which is why I framed this as a mystery; you learn who they are around the same time Conan does. Finally, I _do_ generally respond to reviews; I just usually PM people directly if they have accounts.

* * *

Chapter Eleven

After that little display earlier, Kyle was incredibly worried about what might happen to the Paint Man, aka Nostrum, aka his former friend. It was just like him to be incredibly ridiculous like that. Plus, according to that new detective Heiji, he'd left a lot of evidence. The police had even gone to the convenience store and gotten a picture of his current disguise, or rather his lack of one. That's right, the face he was walking around with was his _real_ face, which was pretty audacious considering he wasn't human at all, and didn't even look it. To the humans, he was basically just a tiny version of Gomera, kind of. Of course, Kyle was the same species, too, but he wasn't nearly audacious enough to walk around with no disguise. That was just plain suicide. Hannah _was_ human, though.

Kyle knew that with the way Nostrum was acting, it was only a matter of time until he got caught by the authorities. He wasn't a criminal mastermind, and his lack of planning showed it. Basically, he just kept getting lucky, which wasn't that surprising. After that livestream, they would've had an emergency session to discuss his knowledge of them. That meant he needed to find Nostrum and get him to safety before the authorities found him. He was also pretty mad that he couldn't hand him over to the Japanese police for all the murders, but that would mean handing him over to the authorities, and that was a fate worse than death as far as he was concerned.

Hannah was busy searching for Nostrum, but she was limited to physical means of doing so, and he needed a new angle. His futuristic scanner was being actively blocked by Nostrum, so he needed someone else for assistance, someone who wasn't limited to physical means and had beef with Nostrum. That was why he was where he was.

He stood on a university campus, back in America, and back in Hannah's world, where Conan and his friends were just characters in a manga. He was disguised as a middle-aged Caucasian man named Bill, which had been his disguise for a past 'mission' and his target would recognize. To pass the time, he opened a book he'd downloaded which he hadn't read: _The Traveller's Journey_. The book was essentially a fictionalized account of his life, and was about as accurate as a Hollywood movie supposedly based on a true story. In other words, it was half entertaining and half super-offensive. To speed up his wait, he got himself some food from the food court. Thenhe planted himself outside the room his target was in.

It took about fifteen minutes before the door opened and a group of people left. His target was the president of a popular campus club, so that was the meeting she'd just been in. He waited about twenty seconds after everyone except the target left before he knocked on the cracked-open door and let himself in. "Excuse me, but could I have a word?" he asked.

The girl at the table looked up from her social media. "What are _you_ doing here? Don't you have gates to guard, Mr. uh…sorry, I forgot your real name. Can I call you Bill?"

"That works," he responded, taking a seat. "I'll get right to the point; the reason I'm here is that I need your help, Elsa. Nostrum, the man you knew as Emperor Rawlings, is causing havoc in another world, and he's blocking all my attempts to track him down. He's in a version of mid 2010s Japan where there's a bunch of super-smart detectives and the crime rates are through the roof."

"You mean like in Hannah's favorite manga, _Case Closed_?"

"Exactly like that. I've even met some of the characters. I took the identity of an American kid named Kyle and I'm there as a foreign exchange student along with Hannah."

"Huh? Hannah's there? But she just texted me asking when the meeting was going to end." She showed 'Kyle' the message, which didn't surprise him one bit.

"It's a time travel thing. The Hannah that's there is from a few months in the future."

"Ugh, time travel," Elsa muttered, putting her head in her hands. "I really hate that crap. Personal experience, you know. Being on ice for thirty years is basically the same thing." She looked darkly at the floor for a minute. "Well, if Hannah from the future is there, come back in the future so we can both talk in the present tense." She waved him off and returned to what she'd been doing.

"Look, I know you went through a lot of stuff, but I really do need your help. He knows Hannah's there, so he knows I'm there somewhere, too. But he won't be expecting _you_."

The girl gave him a look that could melt glass. "I'm done with all this, OK? All I want to do is live my life in peace. I'm through with the world-traveling, all the magic, all the brainwashing, all the stupid time stuff I don't understand; all of it. Why do you even want me, anyways? I can think of at least two other people that you could take instead, one of which actually _watches_ anime."

"The reason I'm asking you is because you're the only person besides me that he's actually scared of," said Kyle quietly. "Or are you too afraid, Que…" The girl looked up halfway through what he was saying and interrupted him.

"Don't call me that," she snapped. "I am not her, not anymore. I've made a new life for myself, with a new identity and new friends."

"Then do a friend a favor and help me out," Kyle winked at her. "I won't call you by your real name if you do."

Elsa sighed again. "What that man does in another world is none of my concern. How am I supposed to go to Japan, anyways? I don't know the first word of Japanese or what the culture is like. And quite frankly, I don't _care_."

"You don't need to," he reassured her. "I'll give you an automatic translator so you can talk to people, and you'll only be there long enough to find him and grab him. Plus, you'll be with Hannah, so she'll translate the culture for you."

"You're not going to give up, are you?" Elsa asked, picking up a pen and twirling it in her fingers. "I tell you what: I'll do you this favor, but for one condition."

"What condition?"

She wrote a name down on a piece of paper and handed it over to him. "I want you to find this girl for me. I can't ask Hannah without compromising my identity. But since you know, just see where she is, or if she's OK or not."

"Great! Then I'll pick you up Friday evening. Just say you're going on a weekend trip and it'll be OK."

"NO," said Elsa firmly. "Come back at the future time that your Hannah's from."

"I…can't do that," Kyle admitted.

"Why not? Mr. all-powerful World-Killer can't do that?"

"Where'd you get that name from? It doesn't describe me at all."

"So? I like saying it. What's the problem with that?"

"If I called you a Canadian Horse-Monkey, would you like that?"

"OK, fair point. But you still need to tell me why you can't return in the future."

"You aren't here then," he replied grudgingly.

"Then where am I?" she demanded. "Out with it already! And don't say that I'm dead; I've cheated death before!"

"OK, fine," Kyle gave in. "You're out guiding a revolution. How's that?"

Elsa put her head in her hands. "As crazy as that sounds, I know you don't lie. I don't even want to know how I got involved in any of that. So you know what? Screw what I said earlier; I'm going with you on Friday."

"All right then," Kyle said. Satisfied, he got up and left the office. He had one task to do before he time-jumped to Friday, so he headed off to the courthouse to start checking records.

XXX

Conan had a sneaky suspicion that the Paint Man case and the investigation into Hannah and Kyle were related, which is why he'd been so willing to call in Heiji; they were just working different angles. He knew Hannah was a detective, and most probably not a criminal, but he still didn't know that much about her. As for Kyle, he knew next to nothing, so that was what he was trying to find out. Kyle had gone off somewhere, so it was the perfect time to look into him without him finding out.

The first thing he did was check social media. The Teitan students had gladly befriended and/or followed most of the foreigners, so all he had to do was surf from account to account, looking for Kyle. It didn't take long to find his profile. It seemed simple enough, but there was one glaring difference between his and his friends' profiles: he hadn't updated it at all since he came to Japan.

Now, a guy not updating their Facebook page regularly wasn't exactly out of the ordinary. What _was_ suspicious was that while all the other foreigners had accepted a bunch of friend requests from the Japanese students, he hadn't. So he wasn't posting, and he wasn't befriending anybody. He also was not friends with Hannah, which since she wasn't actually from their world, wasn't that surprising. She didn't even have an online presence at all.

With no way to track Kyle that way, Conan had to go the old-fashioned route of investigation. He knew he'd gone to a mask shop, or at least he'd pretended to, so he went to go ask around to confirm it.

The first mask shop he went to was one of the largest in the area, with a wide selection of merchandise. "Huh? This boy?" the clerk asked, staring at the picture of Kyle Conan was showing him. "Yes, he came in here late last week. He asked if anyone had bought any life-like latex masks, like the kind Kaitou Kid would use."

"And? Did somebody?"

"Yeah, I've had a weird customer come in here. He was wearing some kind of disguise, like a lizard head or something. It was like a really life-like prosthetic, not a mask. Never seen anything like it. He gives me a picture of somebody and asks for a mask of their face, and he gives me a ton of money. Can't say no to that, can I?"

"The masks he bought, was this one of them?" Conan asked, taking his phone and switching to a picture of the recovered mask from the park.

"Yeah, it is!" the guy exclaimed. "Where'd you find this?"

"The police found it after the Paint Man crime at Touto Tower," Conan explained. "Your weird customer was probably the Paint Man."

The clerk looked stunned. "Are you kidding me right now, kid?"

"You should probably call the police and see if that mask really is yours," Conan told him. "I can call if you'd like, or I can give you the number."

"Nah, I'll do it, kid," said the clerk, picking up the phone. "Man, I really hope you're wrong about this."

'So Kyle really was investigating the Paint Man,' Conan thought. 'Since he came here before the Tower incident, when we all found out about the masks, that means he already knew about the Paint Man's disguise abilities. So it'd probably be better if I tail him.'

With his mind whirring, Conan left the store and returned home. As he reached the office, though, Kogoro suddenly bolted out the door like a scared kitten. "What's wrong, ojisan?" Conan asked innocently.

"Two of the foreign girls are going at each other," Kogoro said in annoyance. "I don't know what the big deal is, and I'm not sticking around to find out."

From inside the office, the sound of someone yelling in English could clearly be heard. Hesitantly, Conan reached for the door handle. "Stupid! Don't do that!" Kogoro exclaimed, bolting up the stairs.

Upon cracking open the door, he saw Katie shouting at Hannah with all the strength she could muster, with Ran desperately trying to keep her away. Hannah, meanwhile, was just standing there looking confused.

" _So you're saying that you being here is just a coincidence_?" Katie shouted.

" _No, it's not a coincidence. I needed to talk to Kyle about something. What are you so angry about_?"

" _As if you don't know! I thought it was suspicious how you suddenly appeared out of thin air as someone Kyle knew. You're his secret lover, aren't you_?"

Hannah looked _very_ confused by this. " _You thought we were…oh, you're_ so _wrong about that!_ " She laughed, but this was apparently the wrong move.

" _Just what are you laughing at? Do you think this is a joke? I would've stayed quiet about this, even with all the quiet conversations and the whispering, but getting him to shut me out is too much! Too much! I would've confessed at the end of the trip, but thanks to you I'd look like a fool if I did that_!"

Conan had caught enough of the conversation to know it was not something he needed to hear. He quickly shut the door and went to tiptoe upstairs, but ran into Kyle on the way up. "What's all the noise?" he asked curiously.

"Nothing you need to hear, Kyle-san," said Conan.

"Really," he replied, not convinced. "Tell me, is Hannah in there? A friend of hers just arrived from America." He glanced over his shoulder to a foreign girl standing behind him. She looked to be in her early twenties, if that, with dark brown hair, dark green eyes, and fairly tanned skin. She was quite clearly of Arab descent judging by her facial features.

"Nice to meet you, kid!" the girl said to Conan cheerfully. She bent over and shook his hand firmly. "You're Conan, right? You wouldn't believe how much Hannah talks about you! It's a pleasure to…"

"Elsa…" Kyle interrupted, cutting her off. "Didn't you need to meet Hannah?"

"Oh, right!" she exclaimed. She looked at the door and her brow furrowed. "Wow, sounds like somebody's getting chewed out for stealing somebody from someone. Sounds like a girl, so I'll take care of this, 'Kyle." She smartly stepped past the guys, knocked on the door twice, and entered the office. The arguing died instantly.

"Guess that took care of that," said Kyle, yawning. "She just has this aura of authority around her that makes her a natural leader. I'm going to go take a nap."

"What about your friend?"

"Oh, her? She's more Hannah's friend than mine. She came here to meet with Hannah, but since she arrived early, I was showing her around."

'So she's from that other world that Hannah's from?' Conan thought. 'Does that mean she's a detective, too?' Curious, he left Kyle and headed back into the office.

" _Hannah, who is that_?" the new girl, Elsa, asked, gesturing to Katie.

" _That's Katie, a friend of Kyle's_."

" _I see. So why are you two arguing_?"

" _It's nothing, just a misunderstanding_ ," Hannah replied, brushing her off.

" _It had better be_ ," said Elsa, walking over to Katie and staring her down. " _Stay away from her, OK? She's taken_."

Katie looked very surprised. " _What? You think that I…_ "

" _I heard words including 'love' 'why' and 'Hannah', accompanied by a lot of shouting. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what you were up to_."

Elsa very clearly had the situation wrong, but from the way she wasn't being accusatory and was more teasing, it seemed like she was deliberately screwing with Katie. Katie was too flustered to pick up on it, so she quickly excused herself from the room, red-faced. At the door, she reached into her purse, took out the book she'd been reading, _The Traveller's Journey_ , and put it on the shelf before leaving.

" _Thanks for the save_ ," Hannah told Elsa as she collected the book. " _She followed me over here and started shouting at me, but everything she was saying was utterly ridiculous, so I didn't know what to say_."

" _What is it about you detectives that makes you so perceptive about everything except yourself and your relations with others_?" Elsa teased, sighing.

" _Sorry about that_ ," Hannah grinned.

"Uh, what just happened?" Ran asked hesitantly. The two foreigners jumped, having forgotten she was there.

"Oh, hello!" said Elsa in Japanese with no hesitation. "I'm Elsa, Hannah's friend. Nice to meet you!" She took Ran by the hand and shook it warmly. Hannah looked a little miffed at this, but didn't say anything.

"Likewise," said Ran, looking relieved that there wouldn't be any more arguing. "So, how do you two know each other?"

"We're best friends!" said Elsa proudly, wrapping an arm around Hannah's shoulders. "And we're more alike than you might think." Again, Hannah looked miffed at that remark, but didn't say a thing about it.

"Let's just say I helped get her out of a jam a while ago, and we hit it off," Hannah explained. "Well, it was actually some other friends of ours that did most of the work, but I helped with getting the criminals involved arrested."

Elsa gave her a funny look at this. "Yeah, that's basically what happened. Anyways, I'm here, so you're going to show me around, Hannah!" She clapped Hannah on the shoulder and steered her out of the office before Hannah could react.

"What was all that about?" Ran asked, still reeling from the day's events.

* * *

So Katie is an OC, even my own stuff, but Elsa's a bit of a different story. She appears in _Trapped in Marisia_ , but she's in her cursed form, and you don't even know what she really looks like then. Basically, her story is that she was forced to become Nostrum's (who was the evil Emperor) Enforcer, in that she was basically his muscle and couldn't disobey any of his commands. She eventually got freed from his control, but got cursed and put under an evil sorceress's control in basically the same position until she is forcibly broken out by the protagonists of the story (just in a future book). Because of all this, she's really good at both fighting with a plethora of weapons (and her bare hands) as well as an expert at magic, rivaling the Paint Man. Hannah can't use magic except through the charm, which is inconvenient for tracking someone magically, so that's why Elsa is here.

Next chapter, Conan and Heiji continue their investigation, but Heiji and Kazuha run into the people the Paint Man ticked off and Conan stumbles on a dark secret. Needless to say, you're going to want to read it. Look forward to it, OK? ;)


	12. Up on the Roof

This is the chapter where we finally learn who Kyle really is, who was in the 'ghost' helicopters, and who Nostrum is trying to infuriate. Hope you enjoy! It took longer than I planned because I rewrote a lot of the future chapters in response to your comments (I'm usually about 3-4 chapters ahead of what's posted on the site to give me time to edit).

Anonymous Review Responses:

Thank you all for the compliments! As it was pointed out, the time travel thing in the last chapter opened up a hole in the story, so I'm patching that right now. This is an explanation I've had for a while, so I'm not just pulling this out of thin air. See, in this world, with all the parallel worlds, time travel creates two versions of that one world. So you've got the old version where you never went back, and the new version where you did. The two are equally real, but you only see the new version. So if Kyle went back in time to stop the murders, the murders would still take place in the original timeline. Since the people Nostrum is after are...unique (more on them later), this wouldn't solve the problem. With Kyle gone from the original timeline, they'd catch Nostrum there, find out about Kyle, and then go to the new timeline and grab him, too.

Sorry for the long explanation, but I really needed to clarify that.

* * *

Chapter Twelve

"So, that's the deal, Kudo?" Heiji asked into the phone.

"Essentially," Conan replied. "That detective girl, Hannah-san, is actually from an entirely different world where my life is documented as a manga. She knows everything about me."

"Wow, that's rough. You trust her?"

"I don't know. She said she's here solely to take down the Paint Man, but there's something about her that I just find unsettling. Oh, and she had a friend show up from America yesterday. She's a girl named Elsa, who's a few years older than us. She's _really_ overly friendly, so I don't know what to make of her."

"Listen to you, Kudo," Heiji teased. "You're just simply surrounded by so many girls! You gonna make a harem?"

"Heiji!" Kazuha suddenly butted in, poking her head from around the corner. "Just who are you talking to about gross stuff like that?"

"It was a joke, Kazuha!" Heiji protested. "And I'm talkin' to Kudo, so don't butt in." Kazuha looked affronted, but went away. "Anyways, Kudo, you're sure about that Kyle kid knowing more than he's letting on?"

"Most definitely. He went to the mask shop to inquire about the Paint Man before we even knew he wore masks. And then he brought that Elsa girl from upstairs yesterday. Occhan said that the two of them didn't come from the third floor, so they must've been on the roof. But what's on the roof?"

"Kudo, you work the case from his end, and I'll work it from my end," said Heiji. "Let that Japanese detective girl that looks like a boy deal with your neechan's stalker. So, see you later, all right?" Heiji hung up and sighed. 'This case is getting more and more complicated,' he thought.

Since he was done with his conversation, he entered the store and walked up the counter. "Excuse me, but may I ask you some questions?" he asked.

"What do you want?" the clerk responded.

"The customer the police questioned you about; could you tell me as well?"

"What's to tell? Some guy walked in dressed like some monster that looked like a cross between Gomera and a human. He bought some paint with cash and left. If you want to see the surveillance footage, the cops still have it."

'No surprise there,' Heiji thought. "When you say he's a cross between Gomera and a human, what did you mean? Could you draw it?"

"Uh, I guess," he gave in. "I'm a terrible artist, though." He took a paper and pen and began drawing. "Let's see…his face looked human enough, but it had this greenish tinge to it, and his hair had this scaly look to it. He also had this big prosthetic tail that looked so realistic I complimented him on it. He hunched forward slightly and his legs were really thick and muscled." He finished his drawing and showed it to Heiji. "That's the best I can do."

'Why would he dress like this?' Heiji thought. 'It stands out so much there's no way it'd be incognito. So what's the point of taking that much time on such a memorable disguise when you're supposed to be operating in secret?'

'What a monster,' Kazuha remarked, looking at the picture. "Do you think he's cosplaying for something?"

'Right, this is Tokyo!' Heiji realized. 'People would think it odd, but they'd think he was a cosplayer or something and just ignore him! So he's hiding himself by making them remember something else. The question now, then, is where he got the costume and what he's doing now.'

Their next stop was an anime merchandise store. "Excuse me, but have you seen this before?" Heiji asked the clerk, passing over the paper. The clerk adjusted his glasses as he looked it over. "Is it a character in something?"

"I'm sorry to say that I've never seen this before," he told Heiji. "If you'd like, I could take a picture and send it to the otaku group that meets here in the store on the weekends. If it's so obscure that even I don't know it, maybe one of them will."

"Uh, sure," said Heiji. The guy took his picture and texted it to everyone in his group.

"Most of them are still at work or school right now, so it might take a while to get a response. Can you give me your number so I can call you if someone finds anything?"

Heiji gave him his number and the two of them cleared out. "Wow, there was a lot of otaku stuff in there," Kazuha remarked. "I wonder if they'd have detective geek stuff, too!" She said this last part teasingly, but the meaning was clear.

"And who would that be for?" Heiji demanded.

"Just some detective geek I know!" she teased, patting him on the arm before running on ahead to the bus stop, which had just come into view.

When Heiji caught up with her, though, there was trouble. A pair of men in black suits and sunglasses were busy harassing her. "Hey, what do you think you're DOIN'?" Heiji shouted, running up to protect her.

"Are you the one with the picture?" one man asked, staring at Heiji. There was only one picture Heiji had that was important, but he didn't know how some random guys would know about it.

"Sorry, I'm not much of an artist," said Heiji. The guy responded by picking up Heiji by the throat and _slamming_ him into a pole. "You can't lie to us, Hattori Heiji, so don't even try."

"Heiji!" Kazuha exclaimed, racing forward to aid him, but the other guy held her back. Surprisingly, nobody on the street even seemed to notice what was going on. Kazuha pulled a martial arts move on her attacker to break free, but the guy wasn't even affected by it.

"Now, that picture," the first man continued. "Where did you get it?"

"What's it to you?" Heiji asked, stalling.

The guy smirked. "That picture depicts a man of another world, Mr. Detective. It should not exist here, as no fiction depicts that race of man. And yet you have it, and you've distributed it. Or you attempted to; we stopped it. We have reason to believe that the man in the picture is the serial killer known as the Paint Man, who is a vicious criminal that needs to be apprehended at any cost. Now, I'll ask again where you got that picture, or I'll just take the information I need from you. Trust me, you will NOT enjoy that. And neither will she." He jerked a thumb at Kazuha, who the other man was still trying to keep under control.

Heiji did not trust these people at all, but he knew he didn't have a choice. "OK, we got it from the store where the Paint Man bought his paint. The clerk drew it based on what he remembered."

The guy let Heiji go, and he fell to the ground wheezing. "Oh, what honesty. We already knew that information, of course; we just had to establish your threat level. You will be happy to know that you are not a threat. Not enough of one to matter, anyways. I will give you one warning, Hattori Heiji. Keep investigating this. I _dare_ you."

He turned to leave, but his partner, who still had his hands full with Kazuha, said, "Boss, don't we need to wipe their memories? It's standard procedure."

"Not right now," his boss replied. "We've got new, temporary protocols. Our first priority is to catch the criminal Nostrum through any means necessary. This boy here is a detective, and will continue to investigate whether he's told not to or not. He may yet prove useful."

"But isn't Nostrum a VIP?"

"Yes, he is. Meaning we can't kill him, but…" The two had walked far enough away by now that they were out of earshot.

"What was _that_?" Kazuha asked. "I was so scared!"

"Secret police, maybe?" Heiji speculated. "But their tactics are really weird. And why did nobody notice them?"

XXX

Conan was busy reading the book Katie had returned, _The Traveller's Journey_. Hannah had surreptitiously offered it to him, which made him believe it might've been something important. It wasn't a normal read for him, since it wasn't about detective stuff, but it was still pretty interesting. It had the name 'Hannah Matthews' inside the front cover, so it was obviously her book, which Katie had borrowed.

It was science fiction, about a man named Georath who worked as a scientist in a dystopian government, but who attracted the ire of mysterious authorities for being a certain class of whatever creature he was (not human), called a VIP. He had escaped these authorities and made it his mission to free his world from their tyranny, but in humane, non-lethal ways. He had an assistant, Evanlyn, and eventually took on an apprentice, Nostrum. He eventually acquired the means to travel between various different worlds via a specific spaceship.

Nostrum came from a version of Georath and Evanlyn's world where society had completely collapsed, so it was every man for himself. Nostrum had history with the same authorities, but didn't really share Georath's morality, causing a lot of strife. There was also a lot of argument because Georath had been granted ultimate power by the gods of the multiverse, and Nostrum thought he was better suited for it. They had been the ones to give Georath his spaceship and other super-advanced technology.

Conan heard a pounding on the stairs and looked out the window just in time to see Kyle running away down the street. 'Good, he's gone,' he thought. Kyle had gone up to the roof an hour before and had stayed there doing something. Conan had peeked onto the roof at the time, but he hadn't seen him there.

That left a new mystery. Conan slowly walked up the stairs, opened the door, and stepped onto the roof. Again, there was nothing there. 'No, he was up here doing something, so there's something here,' Conan thought. With that in mind, he began to scour every inch of the roof for clues.

He hadn't moved more than a couple of meters, though, when he noticed something odd. In the middle of the roof, there was a strange shimmering. It could only be seen when moving around it, but it looked like there was a large object there, except there wasn't one. Conan moved forward to investigate, his palms outstretched. They collided with a solid object, invisible to sight. It felt like a cool, metallic surface. He ran his hands over the metal object until he touched what felt like a seam between two metal plates. Running his hands down the seam, he moved up and to the sides of the seam until he felt something, a handle.

Gripping the handle with both hands, Conan turned it with all his might. In front of him, a door opened in thin air, revealing the interior of the object. With a sneaking suspicion of what he might find, Conan slowly entered the object.

It turned out to be a lot bigger on the inside than he'd thought. He quickly surmised that the thing was a spaceship, since it had displays everywhere. He passed a lot of doors, with labels written above them in a language he'd never seen before.

'So if this is a spaceship, that means there's a control center somewhere,' Conan thought. 'Maybe a bridge? If so, it'd be in the top front, so that's where I need to go.'

The problem was that he had no clue where he was. He had no clue what the ship looked like, so he didn't know where he was within it. It seemed to be a lot bigger than what would fit on the agency roof, anyways. He walked into the nearest room to see if he could glean any clues from it, the door sliding open with a whoosh due to a motion sensor.

This room was enormous, and it looked like it held cargo. It was full of space-age metal boxes, labeled in the same weird language as the room was. What interested him, though, was the computer terminal on the wall. It was at adult height, so he pushed over a box and climbed up on it.

As soon as he touched the screen, a soft, green light erupted from it, enveloping him. It dissipated after ten seconds, after which the screen turned on. To his surprise, the display was in Japanese. In the upper right corner, where the user information for the account was shown, it read _Shinichi Kudo ver.0000124578, VIP_.

Conan just about panicked at that, but he kept his cool. He accessed the computer's files and began looking around. 'Huh, so this spaceship is the property of…huh? Georath? Wasn't that the name of that guy in that book? The guy who goes from world to world?' The reality of what he'd just thought suddenly hit him like a wave. 'So Kyle is _that_ guy? That all-powerful guy?' He went to the search bar and typed in the name 'Georath'. When his profile popped up, his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. 'Whoa, it really _is_ him!'

He took a step back in shock, his mind whirring. 'So this guy, the Paint Man, Hannah-san, and Elsa-san, are _all_ from different worlds? How is that even possible? Why are they here?'

"Seems you saw something you shouldn't," a voice said. Conan spun around to see Hannah and Elsa entering the room. The door slid shut behind them with a swish.

"Oh, I uh, got lost," Conan lied lamely.

"And I'm the Queen of Marisia," Elsa shot back. "What'd you see?"

Hannah moved over to the computer to check. "Just some basic info, it looks like." Turning to Conan, she said, "You did good for finding this place. It's invisible and undetectable for a reason." She was feigning complete ignorance at his being there, since she'd been the one to loan him the book. The loan must've been her way of passing information about why she was there surreptitiously without Kyle finding out. That was probably why she was here now; they were there to keep Conan from being caught.

"Yeah, but we can't really let you spread it around," said Elsa.

"Careful, Elsa," Hannah warned. She jerked a thumb at the computer screen. "If you do anything to him, you'll set off alarms."

Elsa crossed the distance between her and the computer and stared at the screen. "No way! _You're_ a VIP?" she said in astonishment, looking at Conan with newfound interest.

"It makes sense," said Hannah. "He found this place, he's survived a ton of brushes with death, and he's really smart. And the shrinking drug didn't kill him."

Conan was now very confused. "Uh, what are you two talking about?" he asked.

The girls jumped. "Oh, it's just technical lingo," said Hannah. "A VIP is just someone special, is all. It's too complicated to really explain. The only really unique thing about them is that they tend to see things others don't and they have insane luck when it comes to not dying. By 'seeing things others don't', I don't mean ghosts. They see how the world works and who keeps it running. Like the 'ghost helicopters' we both saw at the Tower. Those are the people the Paint Man is after, by the way."

"You're like us," Elsa added. "The two of us are VIPs, too, along with what's-his-name the captain and _him_." She said the word 'him' with a ton of malice.

"You know what?" Hannah said suddenly. "I want to check something. Hold on a moment." She touched the computer screen, loaded her account, and began typing. "As I thought," she said. "That's why he didn't do anything nasty to her."

Conan looked at the screen and saw that it was showing somebody's profile. Specifically, the name read ' _Shiho Miyano ver.0000124578, VIP_."

"Wait, he did something to Haibara?" Conan asked in horror.

"Yeah, he did something to her personality," Hannah confirmed. "She walked in on us talking about the case, and we couldn't let her go and tell you about it too early. You all had to have a direct encounter with the Paint Man first, on your own terms. So he did something to her. I don't know exactly what he did, but you know what? I'll check for you!"

"Hannah, you're being a fangirl again," Elsa warned.

"Oh, bite me," she retorted. "I'm been hearing that this whole trip, and I'm getting sick of it!" She turned to the computer and did another search. "No, he _didn't_!"

"What is it?" Elsa asked, peering over her shoulder. "Oh, it's a memory swap, fully reversible. What's the problem?"

"Look at the other world," said Hannah, pointing at the screen. Conan was too short to see what it was, so he just stood there impatiently. He'd gotten shoved off the box when the girls had hogged the screen.

"What am I supposed to be seeing?" Elsa asked.

"It's a spin-off of this world, two years in the future," said Hannah. "It's an alternate timeline where our friend over there never confessed his feelings in London, leading to no closure in their relationship. Because of that, when Ran found out who he was during the final confrontation with the Black Organization, it completely ruined their friendship, and sent her into a depression. Without Ran's assistance, all the APTX-4869 research the Org had was destroyed, so Conan couldn't return to himself. Ran eventually was killed by Rum, and Conan hooked up with Haibara. So, big difference. That's the world our guy exchanged this Haibara's memories with. So the Haibara here now is that one, and the one from here is over there."

"OK, you just explained that really confusingly," said Elsa. "And I don't know what that drug you mentioned is. The exchange is something I can fix, though, so there's that. I'll just need access to the girl in question. Hey kid!" she looked at Conan. "Could you introduce me to your friend Haibara?"

Conan had been following their conversation, but he didn't really understand any of it. Plus, he didn't trust this girl. "What are you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm going to undo what The Traveller, the guy you know as Kyle, did to her. And don't worry; we'll protect you from him doing it to any of you again. I don't know what he was thinking doing that. You and your friends would've been great allies if he'd just told you what was going on." She glanced at Hannah, who was staring at her with a look of surprise. Suddenly, Elsa tensed up. "Crap, he's back. He'll go ballistic if he finds the kid in here!"

Hannah thought quickly. "Come with me," she told Conan, grabbing him by the hand. She dragged him to a bluish pad in a corner. "Elsa, get us out of here!" she shouted.

"On it!" said Elsa, shutting off the database and moving over to another console. "Do you care where you're going?"

"Anywhere in Beika is fine!" Hannah told her. Elsa touched a button and there was a loud whirring. Then she joined the other two on the pad.

"Brace yourself, kid," she told Conan, patting him on the shoulder. "Just try not to puke." As he watched, the cargo bay suddenly disintegrated into nothingness, replaced by a mix of green and orange hues. Then another image came into focus: Professor Agasa's house. Specifically, it was the road outside the front gate.

As a new set of sights and smells assaulted his senses, Conan suddenly realized this wasn't an image; he had suddenly just appeared in front of Agasa's house. "So, how was your first time teleporting?" Elsa said, grinning at him and patting him on the shoulder.

"You're not puking," Hannah observed, looking not at Conan, but at Elsa.

"Are you kidding?" she asked. "That's no different from going on a roller coaster, and I _love_ roller coasters and stuff like that! Why'd you think I was going to puke?"

"Oh, no reason," said Hannah, not elaborating. Knowing her, though, she obviously had to have had some reason for thinking that, although the reason she wasn't sharing was a mystery. Elsa's eyes narrowed, but she didn't comment on it.

"So, according to the database, this is where your friend Haibara lives, right?" Elsa asked Conan. Without waiting for a response, she strode up to the bell and rang it. There was no response. "Oh come on; nobody's home?" Elsa muttered in annoyance. "Well, now what?"

* * *

And in comes the sci-fi stuff. We also learned just what world the OOC Haibara is from, which hopefully helps explain why she's acting funny. Hannah gave him the book because she got fed up with having to tread lightly around him. Next chapter we learn for sure just who the stalker is, and Conan gets into a run in with the same guys as Heiji.


	13. Surprising Interruption

Hope you're ready for a fight, because that's what happens this time! I've been dealing with trying to get a summer job, end of semester exams and projects, along with some other stuff, so that's why the updates have been so sporadic.

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

Ran Mouri looked at her phone with a look of loathing. This girl, whoever she was, had just had the gall to send her yet another text, this time accompanied by a picture of Shinichi's sleeping face. "Whoa, you think this is for real?" Sonoko asked, looking at the picture. "Sera-chan, have you found this girl yet?"

"I chased her out of the school, but she got on a bus and disappeared," said Sera. "She wasn't hard to follow since she'd put her hair up in a hat."

"Need some help?" someone asked. The three girls turned around to see a foreign girl not part of the student group standing there. "Elsa-san!" Ran exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I was meeting Hannah for something," she said. "When I heard all the yelling, though, I decided to check on you. Are you OK?"

"No, she's not OK!" Sonoko blurted out. "Some girl keeps sending Ran texts about Shinichi-kun being with her instead of Ran!"

Wordlessly, Elsa suddenly snatched the phone from Ran and looked over the text. With her left hand, she waved her palm over the screen, her eyes closed. "Don't worry, I'll take care of this, Ran," she told Ran, giving her the phone back. "You," she looked at Sera, "you come with me and tell me what you've found out."

Sera followed her out of the classroom. "Are you a detective? Is that why you're helping?" she asked.

Elsa laughed. "Me? A detective? That's Hannah's job. I don't have the patience or the smarts for any of that. I _am_ street-smart, though, so it shouldn't be hard to track the girl down. You said you followed that girl the other day, right?"

"Yeah. The other students pointed her out to me, so it wasn't hard. When she saw me following her, though, she took off running. She slipped onto a bus at the last second, and I couldn't follow her anymore."

"What about the girl, then? Was she a student?"

"She was dressed in a uniform, but the other girls that saw her said she seemed too old to be a student. I didn't get a good look at her, but she was carrying an orange child's backpack."

"Well, if she's not a student, she must've gotten a uniform from somewhere. Any ideas?"

Sera had no clue, so she shook her head. "Hey, could I ask you something non-case related?"

"What about?" Elsa asked.

"Your accent. If you're American, why do you have a British accent?"

"Oh that? My family emigrated from the Middle East right after I was born. We spent a few years in England before we eventually moved to America. So mom and dad have Middle Eastern accents, mine is a British-American hybrid, and my little sister's is American. Yours is British too, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is," said Sera. "I spent some time there when I was little, so I picked it up."

"So we're actually more alike than I thought!" Elsa laughed. "So, how about we go get that girl that's been causing poor Ran trouble?"

"You know who it is?"

Elsa smirked. "I've been talking with Hannah about it, and we pretty much have the suspect pinpointed. So let's go get her!"

The two girls changed into outdoor shoes and left the school grounds. "Crap, I don't know where anything here is," said Elsa. "Which way is it to Teitan Elementary?"

Seeing she was totally lost, Sera took the lead. "Why Teitan Elementary?"

"Hannah mentioned that you'd feign ignorance," Elsa remarked. "Don't look so surprised," she added, seeing the look on Sera's face. "She _is_ a detective. She knew about Shinichi Kudo's condition almost immediately, and she pieced together quickly that you did, too. Well, here's a spoiler for you: you aren't the only one carrying an unrequited torch for the teen turned kid. In fact…" she suddenly stopped dead mid-sentence, staring at a man on the other side of the street. The man had stopped walking and was staring at her intently with a look of utter shock. He looked like a regular businessman.

Sera looked between Elsa and the guy. "Do you two know each other?"

Elsa closed her eyes, but suddenly jerked them open again. "I'll say so! That's the Paint Man! Ooh, I've got a bone to pick with him!"

The Paint Man suddenly turned around and bolted down the street, with Elsa in hot pursuit. Sera, not one to miss a fight or a chance to catch a criminal, quickly followed.

XXX

Conan and his friends were walking home from school when they heard a commotion. A crowd had gathered around something in the middle of the street. Luckily it was a residential area, so they weren't really blocking much traffic. Conan pushed his way through the crowd to find that that Elsa girl and Sera were busy fighting what looked like a Japanese businessman, who was using his briefcase as a shield to guard against attacks.

The guy they were attacking had his hands full dealing with two girls trying to hit him. Surprisingly, he was holding his own pretty well. He was matching Sera's Jeet Kune Do with no issue, and Elsa's fighting style, which was more boxer-like, also proved to be little trouble for him.

Then Sera stomped on his foot, spun on her heel, and delivered a quick knee to his stomach while he was distracted by the pain in his foot. Elsa took advantage of the opportunity to deliver a shot to the jaw. Then Conan, ready as ever, popped out a soccer ball and kicked it right at him.

The criminal, however, saw him about to kick a split second before he actually kicked, and therefore took precautions. He suddenly dropped a smoke bomb, forcing the bystanders to back away. When it cleared, he'd disappeared.

"Why am I not surprised?" Elsa said in annoyance, looking ready to explode from rage. Sera looked annoyed, too, but cheered up when she noticed Conan in the crowd.

"So? What did you think?" she asked, approaching him and his friends.

"How'd that guy dodge my soccer ball?" Conan said, pondering what had just happened.

"That guy is really good at getting out of jams," said Elsa. "We'll catch him one day, though. He's not _that_ good. He's just lucky." She shook herself before changing the subject. "So, which of you is Haibara?" she asked the kids.

The kids looked confused, but shot glances at Haibara. "Me. Why?" was all she said.

"Oh, no reason," she replied airily. "It's just that Hannah said she knows who's been sending those mean texts to Ran, so I'm following up on her suspicion." She looked suspiciously at Haibara, which did not go unnoticed by the kids.

"Eh? Ai-chan's been sending mean messages to Ran-oneesan?" Ayumi blurted out. Haibara had a deer-in-the-headlights look, which was a very odd look for her to have when the Black Organization wasn't involved.

"Of course not," said Sera, attempting to keep the kids out of it. "We just think she knows more than she's saying about the whole thing."

Conan was now looking at Haibara suspiciously, but also confusedly. "Haibara, do you know anything about this?"

"How would I know?" she responded defensively. "Why would I send text messages and construction paper cutouts and show up at her school?"

"How did you know the stalker did all that?" Conan countered. "I never told you, and I doubt Ran-neechan did, either."

Haibara knew she was trapped in a corner, so she unconsciously took a step back. "What's with the interrogation, anyways? I'm just a kid! I don't know anything about any of this!"

Sera and Conan both knew better than that. She was also not hiding her face from Sera, which Conan found out of character for her. "Kids, it seems there's been a big misunderstanding," Sera told the three real kids. "Would you mind leaving while I take care of this?" She made a gesture indicating that Elsa should go with them.

The kids complained, but Conan helped send them away as well. "All right, spill. What's going on?" Conan demanded as the four of them left. Their small group started walking the other way, away from the crowd.

Haibara said nothing. Then she looked at Sera and said, "Did you know your brother is still alive?"

Sera's face took on a look of utter shock. "Uh, what are you talking about?" she said, trying to keep her cool.

Haibara smirked. "Your older brother, Akai Shuichi. He was investigating this evil criminal syndicate, but he faked his death to get a mole named Kir further inside. He's still alive, and he's here in Tokyo."

"Haibara, what are you talking about?" Conan blurted out suddenly, very wary. He couldn't afford to have Haibara spilling secrets, let alone ones she wasn't supposed to know. "Quit talking gibberish! Now come on, let's get to the bottom of this."

But Haibara wasn't done. She removed her phone and began texting a message to someone. "You'd best stop with the accusations. Bad things might happen if you don't."

The way she said that clued Conan in that she wasn't just joking like normal, but was being serious. Sera seemed to notice this, too, since she changed tacks at once. "Well, if you're innocent, let us prove it. Come with us to the detective agency and we'll sort this all out," Sera told her.

Haibara gave her a fierce glare. "I'm not going anywhere with _you_. Especially since you're a rival I don't particularly like." Before either of them could respond, the girl walked away, and they couldn't do a thing to stop her.

"You think she's actually behind it?" Sera remarked.

"It seems like it, but what's her motive?" said Conan. "Those two foreign girls were talking about her yesterday, but I couldn't understand what they were saying. It sounded like something out of a sci-fi movie."

"I'll be the judge of that. Spill," said Sera.

Conan thought a moment. "OK, this is going to sound completely crazy, but they were saying that Haibara's memories had been exchanged with another Haibara's memories from another world. You know, alternate timeline, parallel universe stuff."

"OK, that does sound crazy," Sera agreed. "From what I've observed, though, it could very well be plausible. That girl has been acting a lot differently from normal, and everyone's been commenting on it. I didn't even have to see her to know about it. There's one thing I don't get, though. If she's behind all this, who was the adult girl I chased away from the school that day? I was texting Kazuha-chan about it on the way over here, and according to her, she and Hattori-kun were on that bus that girl jumped on to get away from me. She said that the girl looked slightly older than them, a little foreign, and had a Prada phone case and an orange child's backpack."

'What?' Conan thought. That did sound like Haibara, just as an adult. But he'd seen her at school that day, and then again later that evening. She wouldn't have had time to take the temporary antidote, annoy Ran, and turn back into herself. If she was on the same bus as Heiji, he'd have to ask him about it.

Suddenly, with no warning, five men in shades and dark suits suddenly charged out of a parked van and bodyslammed both Conan and Sera into the nearest wall. "What are you DOING?" Sera demanded, struggling to get free. She probably could've gotten away if there weren't three men pushing her into the wall. Conan had two men on him, and was equally trapped.

"You," said a voice. Conan glanced around to see a sixth man standing behind them and looking directly at Sera. "You have had contact with someone not of this world. You will tell us what you know of her."

Sera now looked heavily confused. "I'm sorry, but what are you talking about?"

The man sighed in annoyance, but then pulled out a cell phone and called up a picture. "This woman. What do you know of her?" he asked, showing her the picture. It showed a Caucasian woman, approximately 30-40 years old, with long blonde hair and dark green eyes. She was dressed in some kind of medieval European robes and wore a gold crown on her head. She looked somewhat familiar, but Conan couldn't place her face.

Apparently Sera couldn't, either. "Never seen her," Sera told him. The man looked stunned.

"She's not lying, sir," one of the men said. "There were no biological signs of recognition when she saw that."

"Odd," said the man with the pic, apparently the boss of all the men. "According to our records, you and this woman were in contact less than half an hour ago."

'Wait, is he talking about…Elsa-san?' Conan thought. She'd been with Sera right up until they'd split up.

Sera was having similar thoughts. "Hey, how old's that picture? 'Cause the girl I was walking with looks nothing like that."

"I do not understand this," the guy said. He took the phone and began fiddling with it. "The picture isn't recent, but the woman in question is an adult human female, so she should not look that differently. Hmm…" He wasn't talking to anyone but himself at this point. "Hold on…what's _this_?" he said, looking at something. "Her life history is very _unique_. Oh I see. That's what's going on." He fiddled with the phone again. "My apologies for the trouble, but I gave you the wrong picture," he told her. He showed her the phone again, this time with a picture of Elsa on it. This time, neither of them could hide their recognition. "Good, that settles it," said the boss, putting the phone away.

"Settles what?" Sera asked concernedly.

"That you know this woman-er _girl_ ," he corrected himself.

Conan had had just about enough of this. 'So there are six guys,' he thought. 'I've got my tranquilizer and a soccer ball, so I can take on my two. Sera could probably take on the other four if they're distracted.' He prepped himself, and then acted. He aimed his watch, jammed the switch into the wall to activated it, and shot a needle at one of the guys. The guy slackened his grip on Conan, which gave him the chance to break free and activate his belt and shoes. He rebounded the soccer ball off the wall and hit the other guy square in the face.

As Conan had predicted, Sera used the distraction to go to town on her attackers as well. One went down from a kick to the groin; another got kneed in the face. Then she elbowed the third guy in the stomach.

To their horror, though, all five men stood back up again, seemingly unharmed. Even the guy who had gotten hit with the needle hadn't been affected long. "Conan-kun, run," Sera said. They instantly took off down the street, desperate to get away. Bystanders just stared, as if only seeing them flee, and not the evil men. "You cannot run, you two!" the leader called, making no attempt to pursue. "We always know where you are!"

Sera and Conan raced into a park and dove into some bushes, breathing hard. "Who are those guys?" Sera muttered. 'Do they work for the government? Are they spies?'

Suddenly Conan saw a face peering in at them. "Sera and Conan? What are you doing in there?" Kyle asked. He was by himself, dressed in a jogging suit. He didn't really seem like the jogging type, but they were too rattled to think about that at the moment.

Sera quickly spilled their story. "Well, there were these guys, dressed in suits and shades, that jumped Conan-kun and me a ways away. They kept demanding if we'd seen this blonde foreign woman, then switched the picture to Elsa-chan, and then when we ran away, they said 'You can't run from us!' while at the same time not trying to pursue!" She'd said that all really quickly, so now she was done she was finally able to catch her breath.

Kyle's face took on a serious look. "These men…what did they want, exactly?" he asked.

Sera thought a moment. "They said we'd had contact with someone 'not of this world' and then started getting really demanding."

Kyle's fists clenched. "I was afraid of this. Don't worry, Sera, I'll take care of this." He quickly jogged off, but Sera wasn't about to let him go without an explanation.

"Hold it! What's going on?" Sera demanded, matching stride with him.

"It's not your problem," he said, brushing her off.

"It became my problem when those guys jumped us!" she protested. "So out with it!" She spun him around and stared him down.

Kyle didn't look very intimidated, but then he gave in. "You know what? You're right. So come with me." He took her hand and Conan's and said, "Teleporter, Activate!" Immediately, the world disappeared into a host of colored splotches, until it reformed again. They were back in the spaceship, in a similarly sized room to the cargo bay.

"Where are we?" Sera demanded, looking around in wonder.

"You're on my ship," said Kyle. "My real name is Georath, The Traveller. I'm here with Hannah and Elsa to track down an old friend of mine turned enemy, Nostrum, the man you know as the Paint Man. The people that just jumped you are pawns of an organization called the Protectors. They keep order in every world, like a multiverse police, although that's a really poor way of describing them. They're the ones Nostrum called out in his livestream."

"Multiverse…police?" Conan said confusedly.

'Kyle' sighed. "Look, just go watch the American TV show _Sliders_ for a rough idea of what I'm talking about. And the American movie _The Matrix_. They're kind of the same thing, if you combine aspects of them, although that's still a really poor analogy. The problem is that Nostrum, Elsa, and Sera here got into a huge fight earlier, which ended in a draw, so the Protectors are busy trying to figure out what's going on, and they're tracking down everyone they've had contact with to do so. They 'questioned,' I use that word loosely, your friends Hattori and Kazuha when they tried to publish a sketch of Nostrum's true face, so these people are no joke. Stay here while I handle this."

"We're not staying here!" Sera said loudly, putting her foot down.

"This is the only place you'll be safe!" Kyle responded. "They can't get in here, and it's the only place in this world they can't."

"We're leaving," said Conan firmly. "We're detectives, and we don't run from a case." Sera nodded in agreement.

Surprisingly, Kyle smiled. "I guess that's a trait of all detectives, huh? Hannah fed me a similar line when she insisted on coming along. Since I can't stop you, I'll help all that I can." He moved away towards a computer panel and began tapping on the screen. After a moment, he stepped away as a couple of objects appeared on another transporter pad. "Here," he said, scooping up the objects and passing them out. They were bracelets, made of metal and fiberglass with a ton of circuitry inside. "These will disguise you from the Protectors temporarily. They usually work three days, so that's how long you've got to help me catch Nostrum. Once I take him away, the Protectors won't bother you again."

"So who are you? A bail bondsman?" Sera asked.

"No," Kyle smiled. "I suppose the closest term would be… _vigilante_. Now, hold still while I transport you back."

* * *

I warned you that the other Haibara knew things the real Haibara wouldn't. You'll get to see more of her thought process later. Oh, and Elsa has a big secret, which I may or may not elaborate on here. It doesn't really help the story at all, and it's kind of a big spoiler to my own work. That's what all the 'wrong picture' stuff was about.

Also, it might interest you to know that I have never actually watched _The Matrix._ Or _The Godfather_. 'Cause I'm weird. :P

Next chapter will involve a POV segment from the false Haibara as she accelerates her plan, and an interruption from someone creepy. That's another reason it took so long to get this chapter out: I was going over some of the future chapters to ensure they didn't have too much of a weird feel and made sense.


	14. Tracking Down Nostrum

Who ever said good old-fashioned detective work can't get you good results? :D

To the Anon who reviewed, I thank you for your honest feedback. It's always appreciated. ;) However, I will warn you that Nostrum and The Traveller aren't the smartest people around, and they make mistakes. Kyle in particular has issues with ego and pride. Nostrum's just a sociopath that doesn't think before he acts. And the Protectors are kind of multiverse police, but kind of not. They're pretty hands-off and don't get involved unless they really need to. There's actually a more in-depth reason concerning their actions, but that's a story for another day. I will talk more about the VIPs and how they're related to the Protectors later on in this story, though, since it'll be related to the plotline.

As for why they just spilled the beans so easily, Hannah thought the reasons for them not telling the Conan characters everything to begin with were stupid, so she orchestrated events so Conan would go investigate. Kyle realized he'd been had and just went with it. Nostrum was his former apprentice turned enemy, so he doesn't trust people very easily anymore.

If anybody has any more questions or wants clarification on something, feel free to ask!

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

Ai Haibara, the intrusive one, was preparing for another strike against Ran. She was trying, perhaps selfishly, to break Shinichi and Ran up permanently without being too mean to Ran. Ran would still be sad, of course, but she wanted the breakup to be Ran's decision. She was in her adult form currently, but in disguise. In her world, she had created a pill that negated the effects of the temporary cure immediately when taken, so you could control when someone transformed back. That was what she had used when she had barely escaped from Sera, and it was what she was planning to use later that day when her plans were done.

She entered the arcade and took off her sunglasses. As her eyes adjusted to the difference in lighting, she spotted what she was after – one of those print club machines. She walked over to the machine, brushing past the curtain, put in some money, and prepared to take the necessary picture.

Suddenly someone joined her in the booth, jamming her up against the back wall. It was a tight fit, and she couldn't even see the guy's face. "You're Ai Haibara, right?" the guy said.

Haibara was silent, trying to figure out how to escape. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. "Yes, it seems you are who I'm looking for. I happened to get into a fight with someone that knew of your current fish-out-of-water status, so I thought I'd offer to help you. That's the correct expression, right?" He was quiet for a moment, seemingly thinking about it. "Yeah, it is. Pleasure to meet you." Haibara felt her hand being grabbed and pumped in a handshake.

"Who are you?" she demanded, slowly turning around to look at the guy. He looked like a twenty-something guy, good-looking to boot.

"I've had many names," he replied. "Emperor, Nostrum, the Paint Man, the list goes on."

Haibara jumped when she heard that. 'The Paint Man? That serial killer?' To him, she shouted, "Get out of here! Leave me alone!" Or at least she tried to. She'd barely gotten a word out before a hand got slapped over her mouth.

"Hey, let's not have any of that," he said firmly. "I tracked you down because I need a favor. So let's trade. I'll send you back to your boyfriend right now. In return, I ask you to hold onto something for me. I have a feeling I'm going to be caught in the next forty-eight hours, so I need to take precautions."

Haibara was surprised, but she didn't really have a say in the matter. The Paint Man dug around in a briefcase he'd brought and passed her an object wrapped in a cloth. It was large and surprisingly heavy. "What is it?"

"You'll know soon enough," the Paint Man replied. Then he put a hand on her temple. "Now, receive my power!"

Instantly, Haibara doubled over from sheer pain, radiating from the point on her temple where he'd touched her. He let go almost instantly, but it only got stronger from there.

"OK, my job is done," said the Paint Man, sliding back the curtain and heading out. "Keep ahold of that thing for me and we'll call it even, all right?"

Her head still pounding, Haibara stumbled out of the booth into the arcade. The light filtering in from the front door blinded her, so she covered her eyes as she stumbled into a wall.

"Hey, are you OK?" a patron asked.

"That guy that came out before me…grab him," Haibara got out, struggling for breath.

Considering she wasn't acting right, the patron had no doubt she wasn't lying. "Hey, get him!" he shouted. There was a pounding of feet on the tiled floor as nearby male patrons ran to her aid. Haibara's vision had cleared by now, and she saw the Paint Man effortlessly brushing off the attackers. Then the arcade door burst open and that Kyle guy burst in.

"NOSTRUM!" he bellowed. "What are you in here doing?"

The fight stopped instantly. "Well, look who it is," said Nostrum. "I had a feeling I'd run into you today." He brushed off the remainder of his attackers and approached Kyle. "I knew when I got confronted by that girl on the tower that you were someone around. Turns out I've met you before and didn't even know it! Good work on your disguise, since it fooled me completely."

"Come with me," said Kyle. "You're stirred the pot too much here. They were on the scene even before you made that broadcast. They had helicopters around the top of the tower in minutes after the murder, and they've been interrogating people about your whereabouts. They've been forgoing their usual memory-wiping methods."

"That serious, huh?" Nostrum grinned. "Well, I've always wanted to make a splash, and now I have."

"They won't reform, Nostrum," said Kyle. "It's not in their nature. There are other ways of making the Protectors pay for their cruel practices. Purposely riling them up like this was incredibly irresponsible and stupid."

"Oh, but you don't know my full plan yet!" Nostrum said in a sing-song voice. "I don't have any intention of telling you, either, or of letting you interfere, so I guess I need to get you out of the way. This isn't personal, so don't take it that way." Then he leaped at Kyle, starting a fight.

"Don't do this!" Kyle exclaimed as he was pushed out of the arcade by the ferocity of Nostrum's attacks. He appeared to be using karate on Kyle. Kyle seemed to be unwilling to fight him, which probably meant he was going to eventually lose.

It was then that Haibara lost consciousness, tumbling to the ground as the onlookers still stared out the door.

XXX

"And that's why you're the culprit!" Conan announced through the bowtie, imitating Sonoko's voice.

The criminal broke down. "He found out I had sold substandard property and was blackmailing me over it. He wanted thousands of yen a month, and it kept going up! I was about to go broke!" With a gesture, Megure motioned for Takagi to take the culprit away, leaving his two coworkers in a state of shock.

'Ugh, that was exhausting,' Conan thought. The trick had involved the force of a toilet flush, some fishing line, and a katana, among other things. Thinking about it made it sound even more outlandish.

Sonoko yawned loudly as Ran congratulated her for solving the case. 'Now, back to the Paint Man case,' Conan thought, mentally switching gears.

They'd been on their way to the fight scene again to look for clues when they'd been distracted by the case. A friend of Kogoro's had recognized Ran and asked for assistance with something unrelated when the corpse had been found nearby.

The three left the building and headed for the fight scene. It looked the same as before, but the entire street was cordoned off while the police investigated. The case was being handled by another division since it was just a fight and not a major crime or a murder. Conan had heard that Sera had been interrogated by the police about it, but all she'd said was that she and that Elsa girl had been tracking the Paint Man and gotten into an argument with him. The girls got trapped in the crowd, so Conan used it to slip away and get inside the scene.

To his surprise, he saw Heiji there, alone. He was busy studying a drain. "Oh, Kudo!" Heiji exclaimed. "I thought you were busy with those weird students."

"I solved that mystery," said Conan. "They're on our side, as far as I can tell. What've we got?"

That made Heiji smirk. "It seems our friend the Paint Man dropped something in his haste to get away. I asked some taxi companies, and one of their drivers remembered having picked up a businessman around that time yesterday one street over." He pointed in the appropriate direction. "Since he bolted that way, I thought I'd look for clues between here and there, and I found somethin' good!" He reached into his pocket, took out a handkerchief, and unfolded it.

'This is-' Conan thought in surprise.

"Yep," said Heiji, still smirking. "It's a coin locker key. It even has a sticker saying what station the locker's at. There was a crack in the pavement, so I'm guessin' he tripped over it and it came out of his pocket. So, what do you think? Care to check it out?"

Now Conan smirked. "You'd better believe it."

XXX

Later that evening, the two detectives were at the station, staking out the locker. The locker had had a bunch of latex masks and other disguise stuff in it, which confirmed they were on the right track. The most surprising thing was a picture of a small Buddha statue owned by Beika Temple, which had recently been stolen. "Wow, so that guy Kyle is actually some fictional character named Georath that travels between worlds? Like alternate worlds?" Heiji said, having just heard Conan's explanation.

"Yep. Hannah-san had a book that explained a lot of it. Apparently they're here to capture Nostrum, aka the Paint Man. They have access to a lot of futuristic technology, which to us would look like magic. The ship they used to come here is parked on the roof of the detective agency, but it's invisible."

"Geez, you aren't making this up, are you?" said Heiji, rubbing his head in confusion. "And those guys that jumped me and Kazuha, they're called Protectors?"

"Supposedly they keep order through any means necessary."

"Jerks," Heiji muttered. They ended their conversation abruptly when they saw someone heading for the coin locker they were watching. "Oh, now who's this?" Heiji asked.

The guy searched his pocket for a key, but when he didn't find it, he put one hand on the handle, one foot on the wall of lockers, and ripped the door right off its hinges.

'Whoa,' Heiji breathed. The suspect grabbed his stuff and hightailed it out of the station, with Conan and Heiji following his every move.

As they hit the street, the suspect began walking at a more normal pace. After walking for half a block, he detoured into an alleyway. Heiji and Conan made to follow him, but as they turned the corner, Heiji was suddenly clotheslined by the suspect's outstretched arm. "You two are following me," said the suspect in an annoyed tone. "Just great."

Heiji rubbed his head where it had hit the guy's arm. "Yeah, you dropped your key, so we tracked you down."

"I can see that." The Paint Man shrugged. "Pity it won't help you catch me."

"Your friend 'Kyle' explained everything," said Conan. "So we're going to take you to him."

"Right, him," said the Paint Man darkly. "I got in a fight with him earlier, so I'm not exactly at full strength right now. And besides, you don't want to try and capture me anyways." The Paint Man smirked evilly at this. "When I was out doing some reconnaissance earlier, I happened across a friend of yours. I think you call her 'Haibara.' It turns out her memories got swapped out with another version of herself in another world, so I stepped in to fix it. The problem is that I got interrupted partway through by your friend Kyle. So the memory swap isn't complete. Your friend is now currently walking around with two sets of memories in her head. Or maybe it's just partial memories, or just fragments. In any case, only I can fix her back to normal, so you really don't want to arrest me."

"Kyle-san or Elsa-san will fix the problem," Conan told him.

"Oh. Right," the Paint Man said. "I'd almost forgotten she was here. Your friend Kyle won't fix it because he doesn't want to admit it caused more problems than it solved. But she will, won't she? Well, there goes that trump card." He took on a fighting stance. "How about this? The three of us have some old fashioned fisticuffs, with no magic or technology. I think I can manage that."

Conan raised his watch and fired a tranq dart, but nothing happened. 'Crap, I used it up on the deduction earlier!' he thought. Then he went to Plan B. He popped out a soccer ball, turned on his shoes, and kicked it at the man's face as hard as he could. The ball slammed into him, but ricocheted off of him and went high into the sky, out of sight.

"Ow," said the Paint Man sarcastically. Then Heiji got involved, picking up a metal pipe like a kendo stick and waving it threateningly. "Oh, are you accepting my challenge?" the criminal smirked.

"You'd better believe it," Heiji growled.

The Paint Man picked up another pipe. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this. Hey, fake kid!" he addressed Conan. "Stand back unless you want to get hurt!" Conan wisely stood back as the two began circling each other.

Heiji struck first. He suddenly dashed forward and took a swing at the guy's leg. The pipe glanced off like the ball had before. "Hey! What about makin' this a fair fight?" Heiji complained.

"If you insist," he replied, waving his hand. Then he attacked Heiji, forcing Heiji to block his assault. Conan, seeing that Heiji was pretty evenly matched, quickly sent a text to Ran to tell her what was going on. He couldn't contact Kyle directly due to not having his number, so it was his best bet. Normally he would've just gone to the police, but he couldn't trust them now with those black-suited guys sniffing around. The suits would just as easily arrest him as they would the criminal, and he didn't really need that.

Heiji got away from the assault, sidestepped another attack, and pressed his advantage. Nostrum countered, but the pipe did graze his arm, drawing blood. The blood was a sickening greenish color.

"Now that's not nice," said Nostrum, taking a step back before charging forward with the pipe swinging crazily. He backed Heiji into a wall and leaned over him, their pipes locked in an X.

That was when the cavalry arrived. Kyle, Elsa, and Hannah raced in from the street, took stock of the situation, and got to work. Elsa raced forward and grabbed Nostrum in a headlock from behind, forcing him to let Heiji go as he tried to pry her off. Hannah quickly got Heiji and Conan to a safe distance. Kyle, meanwhile, was busy fiddling with what looked like a tablet. "All right, hold him still," he told Elsa.

"Easy for you to say!" she shouted. She put her palms over his eyes, muttered something in an undertone, and bright light erupted from her palms and into his eyes.

"Aargh!" Nostrum screamed, now dancing like crazy trying to throw her off. Blinded, he stumbled into a wall and a couple of trash cans. Since he knew where the wall was now, he backed into it as fast as he could over and over, squashing Elsa between him and wall. She visibly winced as he kept it up before finally dropping off of him and retreating to a safe distance, clutching her ribs and wincing from pain.

"You OK?" Hannah asked Elsa concernedly.

Elsa checked herself over. "I've had worse. You remember the time I got thrown fifty feet into that freezing lake?"

"You got thrown into a lake?" Hannah asked. Elsa's face took on an 'oh crap' look, which led Conan to believe she'd let something slip she shouldn't have.

With Elsa in the clear, Kyle acted. He pushed something on the tablet and large metal strips suddenly emerged from the ground, quickly weaving themselves around Nostrum until they formed a cage.

Nostrum tried to escape, but he wasn't quick enough. "Oh, all right; I give up," he said, sitting down cross-legged.

"You've actually got him?" Heiji asked Kyle. Wordlessly, Kyle hit a button and Nostrum and the cage vanished into thin air.

"Yep," he said, smirking. "He's not going anywhere anytime soon. At least, I hope not. Knowing him, he could very easily have prepared for this."

It seemed a little too easy, but Conan wasn't about to say anything else, not after what he'd just seen. How had Elsa shone that light into his eyes anyways? She hadn't had any flashlights or anything.

* * *

Guess what? The Haibara subplot wasn't actually a subplot at all! It was setting up for all this! Nostrum might be caged, but that doesn't mean the story is over. The next big case is the theft of something important! I wonder what it is...

Oh, and I have exams this week, so updates might be more sporadic than normal. Of course, I've been updating more and more infrequently lately anyways, so that's not saying much. :P


	15. New Case

There's only one scene this time, but it's long and it sets up the remainder of the story. We also learn just why Nostrum stole that statue.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

With the Paint Man caught, the case was solved and everything went back to normal, kind of. Kyle and Hannah still had to wait to leave until the rest of the foreigners left, and Elsa decided to stay behind with them in case Nostrum had had a backup plan of some kind. Sonoko had invited her to stay at her house, which took care of her lodging situation, and was much better than the motel she'd been staying in. Conan thought the case was over, but there were still two loose ends.

The first one was Haibara. The annoying texts to Ran had mercifully stopped, but Haibara was still acting funny. She seemed a little more open-minded and chatty than normal. The second one was the picture of the Buddha statue. The statue had been stolen, but no one had any clue where it was. The prime suspect was Nostrum, but Kyle had taken him away so the Protectors would leave Conan and his friends alone, so they couldn't ask him about it. Heiji and Kazuha had returned to Osaka, so Conan was by himself now.

A few days after the capture, they got a break in the case. A client, a monk, came into the Mouri Detective Agency with new information. "Mouri-tantei," the monk began. "I came across something while I was cleaning last night that I think might have something to do with the theft." He reached into his pocket and pulled out an object, a key.

Kogoro picked up the key. "A key? That's your big clue?"

The monk quickly explained. "That key doesn't match any of the locks in the temple, which we don't have many of, and it was found next to the place where the statue was, wedged between the tatami mat and the wall. The area isn't accessible to the public, so we were thinking it belonged to the thief."

"So why didn't you take this to the police?" Kogoro asked.

"I did, but they said that a generic key like that isn't very easy to trace. It came up clean on fingerprints, so it doesn't really help them."

"Well, they're right about it being generic," said Kogoro. He pulled out his key ring and showed the monk his keys, most of which looked a lot like the clue key. "A cheap key like this costs basically nothing. It could belong to anyone."

Conan looked at the key, desperate for a clue. "Ah-le-le!" he exclaimed, making Kogoro jump in annoyance.

"What is it?" Kogoro growled.

"Look, it has a number on it!" Conan exclaimed, pointing. It was small, and inside one of the little grooves on the long part of the key.

"A serial number!" said Kogoro. "At the very least, we can talk to the manufacturer to see where the key was sold."

"Good job, little boy!" said the monk.

"Oh, he's just nosy!" said Kogoro, patting Conan on the head. "I tell you what, I'll call around and see if I can find anything out about this. I'll let you know if I find anything."

"Thank you, Mouri-tantei!" said the monk. He stood up, bowed respectfully, and headed for the door. As he was leaving, another figure slipped in.

"Hey, what was that about?" Elsa asked, coming in and sitting casually on the desk.

"Stolen statue," said Kogoro. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I just thought you'd like to know that they got the Paint Man!" she said. "Yeah, it turns out he was this pedophile otaku guy that watched a few too many movies and decided to kill people. They found a little girl tied up in his apartment, so they've got him on all the murder charges and the kidnapping. He's not getting out anytime soon."

"Well, people will certainly breathe easier now," said Kogoro. Conan, who knew that the guy wasn't the Paint Man, looked to Elsa for an explanation, but she wasn't making eye contact with him.

"Nee, Elsa-no-neechan, where's Hannah-no-neechan?" Conan asked cutely.

"Out with the group doing some shopping, I think," she replied. "I wasn't invited. You mind if I hang out here?" Without waiting for a reply she laid herself out on the desk, like a cat sunning itself.

"Oi!" Kogoro exclaimed. "What are you doing?" He grabbed his ashtray to keep her from knocking it off.

"Oh, I'm just tired is all," she replied, her eyes closed. "I really just want to go home, but I'm stuck here for the foreseeable future, so I'm bored out of my mind."

"Want to go play soccer, then?" Conan asked, looking for an excuse to talk to her.

Elsa sat up. "Soccer, huh? I used to be good at that. You know what? I'll do that."

The two of them left the agency and headed for a nearby empty lot, with Conan making a pit stop upstairs to pick up a ball. "Oh, you were serious about the soccer thing?" Elsa asked. "In actuality, I used to be a soccer star back in high school, so I hope you're ready to lose!" She looked really excited at this.

When they reached the lot, they took up position on opposite sides. As they began the game, Conan stuck up conversation. "So, why are you still here? The other two have to keep their cover, but not you. You only came to catch the Paint Man, so why stick around?"

"It's just a funny feeling I've got. That guy doesn't just steal things without a good reason, let alone priceless things like that. He must've hidden it somewhere, and that's what scares me."

"You still didn't answer the question," Conan pointed out.

Elsa sighed. They stayed quiet for a minute as they kept stealing the ball from each other. No one had made a goal yet. "The Paint Man, Emperor Rawlings, Nosturm, whatever you want to call the guy, he had this…thing a while back that gave him unlimited power. Call it an Artifact. All he had to do was hold it, tell it to do something, and it would do it. You know how in video games the developers can put in cheat codes, like infinite ammo or health? Well, that's kind of what an Artifact does for real life. If you have one, it essentially gives you unlimited power and makes you effectively immortal. You can't get hurt, you can't die, and you can do whatever you want, no matter how insane it might seem."

"So that statue is one of these Artifacts?"

"Most probably. Artifacts have the ability to take on any form the wielder chooses, but when left alone they generally take on a form that will make people generally leave them alone out of respect. In America, that might be an antique American flag, a fake Silver Star, or a statue of Jesus. It's stuff that politically conservative people would throw a fit over if it was mistreated. Here in Japan, the Buddha statue certainly fits the criteria."

"If it's so powerful, how come these Artifacts aren't being used by evil people to take over the world?"

Elsa kicked the ball at the goal, but Conan intercepted it. "It's because the Artifacts weren't made to be used by human hands. They are the weapons of the Protectors. To a human, it's basically a drug, worse than heroin and meth combined. They'd self destruct in a week if they misused it. Of course, it is possible for a human to use one with no problems, but they'd have to have intense willpower to resist the temptation of overusing it."

"So since that Nostrum guy wasn't human, he could use it fine?"

Elsa laughed. "It's not because of that. Nostrum and what's-his-face are both aliens from a planet called Lara. Their species is basically a combo between mammals and reptiles. It's why they have green skin and thick tails, but no scales. And they're warm-blooded. My point is that they can't use it any more than we humans can. However, there is an exception."

"The VIPs, you mean?" Conan reasoned.

"Hannah was right; you _are_ sharp," Elsa replied, impressed. "Yes, you're right. VIPs are called that because they have the ability to use the weapons of the Protectors, along with being able to recognize that the Protectors exist. The Traveller has a saying that when multiple VIPs congregate in a single location at a single time, weird things happen. When we took Nostrum in, there were five of us there." She suddenly stopped the ball dead and stood on it with one foot. "So, have you noticed any changes in the world?"

"Uh…not really…" Conan replied, caught off guard. "I mean, there's the whole Haibara thing, but nothing other than that."

Elsa scowled. "I missed my chance to examine her when Sera sent me away with the kids. I couldn't say no to that without looking rude. I heard Nostrum tried to repair the damage, but he only ended up making things worse 'cause the Traveller chose that particular moment to interfere. Of course, knowing Nostrum, he could very easily have done it for selfish reasons, but I don't know what those are."

"Is Kyle really a good guy, then?" Conan asked. "He did all that stuff to Haibara and he and Nostrum seem to be pretty similar, and they're both being hunted by the Protectors."

"Morality is never black and white, kid," Elsa replied. She looked sad for a moment. "Tell me, based off your observations of me, would you consider me to be a nice person? Am I on the right side of the law?"

"You offered to help Haibara almost immediately. And you helped capture Nostrum. Doesn't that count?"

Elsa shook her head. "I wanted to help the girl because she reminded me of me. She's a loner, she doesn't really trust others, and she'd rather sacrifice herself for the greater good than let anyone else get hurt. Remember, Hannah never shut up about you guys, and Haibara was the character I identified the most with, even though I could never be bothered to read the manga or watch the anime."

"Wait, you're like Haibara? You're a lot more outgoing than she is."

"That's an act," Elsa replied. "It's a shadow of my old life, before I got mixed up in all this." She suddenly looked right at Conan and said, "Kudo Shinichi, I am not a good role model for anyone. I'm selfish, cruel, and sadistic. I lie all the time, with no regrets. So while I might have all this power, and fighting skills, and cunning, I don't deserve any of them."

She had returned her gaze to the ground with that sad expression again. "Kudo Shinichi, just as you are older than appear, so am I. If my face showed my true age, I'd be fifty-six. My regressing in age wasn't my choice. It was a mistake; a boon I don't deserve."

Conan walked forward and put a hand on her arm. "The fact you're feeling so bad about it means that none of that is true."

Elsa smiled sadly. "I've heard that speech before, or at least a similar one, from a bunch of people. And while I appreciate the kind words, they're just words." She began nudging the soccer ball again, before passing it to Conan. "I'm tired of soccer now, so I'm going to go take a nap somewhere. Maybe get a milkshake or something. Or some more ramen; Japanese ramen is _amazing_! I've told you about the Artifacts and the Protectors, so I trust you can track down that statue with your usual means. If you find it, contact me immediately. Not the Traveller. Later, kid." Then she walked off, waving good-bye absentmindedly as she did so.

* * *

She isn't joking; she really _did_ used to be a mean person. She still can be sometimes. But enough about 'Elsa'. We've got some clues about where the statue was hidden now, so all Kogoro and Conan have to do is follow them. Nostrum has this really bad habit of dropping things, doesn't he?

Oh, and we finally learned just why the VIPs are called VIPs! :D

Next chapter they try to track down the statue, but something powerful like that isn't something the thief is going to let them take without a fight. Look forward to it!


	16. Key Chase

So, I'm back finally with the next chapter. I've actually had the next four chapters done since the spring, but I quit updating because there simply wasn't very much activity going on at the time, meaning no reviews, no favorites, no etc. On the bright side, I used the time to self-publish my first novel, _Trapped in Marisia_ , on Amazon kindle, so go look for it if you like my work. :)

This chapter continues the investigation into the key, and features the Paint Man's backup plan coming to fruition.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

"Really? Thank you Inspector!" said Kogoro. He hung up the phone and sighed. The manufacturer had been unwilling to give out any personal information, so he'd asked Megure for assistance. The snooty guy had balked after Megure had yelled at him for a minute about withholding evidence. After solving so many cases for Megure, the guy owed him a favor, even though he worked homicide and not theft.

Now he knew where the key was sold, he locked up the agency and headed over there. He'd had to wait until the next day to call because he needed to sober up first, so he'd called while all the kids were at school. Since it was the middle of the day, there were few people out and about.

The store in question was a hardware store, so he waited patiently in line until he could get up to the desk. "Yes, may I help you, sir?" the cashier asked, noticing his lack of merchandise to purchase.

"Uh, yeah, so I found this key, and I'd like to know who you sold it to." He put the key in the cashier's line of sight.

The cashier took the key and looked it over. It had already come up blank on prints, so it didn't matter if he held it. "Sir, I don't really know what to tell you. That key's pretty common. Let me call the manager." He picked up the phone behind the desk and put in a store-wide announcement asking for the manager.

It didn't take long for the manager to appear. "Yes, can I help you?" he asked Kogoro. "Wait, aren't you the famous Sleeping Kogoro?"

"The one and only!" Kogoro said proudly. This instantly got the attention of the other customers.

"Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, sir!" said the manager warmly, taking his hand and shaking it. "Our store will try and help you in any way we can."

The two exchanged business cards as they walked towards the manager's office. "I know this key was sold here, so I was wondering who it was to," said Kogoro, showing the manager the key.

"Well, I don't think we keep serial numbers on file, but I can check," said the manager. "Hey, Takumi-kun!" the manager shouted at an employee. "Go get our records on key sales!"

"Sir?" the employee asked in confusion.

Kogoro stepped in. "Could you go check your records? I have this key here that I need to track down the owner to." He'd written the serial number down earlier on a piece of paper, so he took this out and handed it to the employee. The employee still looked confused, but he took the paper and disappeared into the back.

The two of them went into the manager's office to wait, which was pretty small and reeked of cigarette smoke. "So, do you mind if I ask what the case is about?" the manager asked excitedly.

"Stolen Buddha statue," said Kogoro. "That key was found at the scene, and it doesn't match any of the locks at the temple."

"Well, that _is_ intriguing," said the manager. "But who would just drop their key while they're stealing something?"

"That's the mystery," said Kogoro. They continued chatting aimlessly for another ten minutes until there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," the manager called. The door opened to reveal the same employee as before, clutching a folder. "Oh, did you find something?"

"I did," he replied, handing the file to Kogoro. The manager leaned over his desk to see as well. It was a report on a massive shipment of keys to the Suzuki estate when they'd gotten new doors and locks after Kaitou Kid had paid Sonoko a visit.

Kogoro read over the file carefully. "I suppose I'll pay a visit to the house, then," said Kogoro, standing up and handing the manager the file. "Thank you for your time, sir."

"Anything for you, Mouri-tantei!" the manger exclaimed, dropping the file on the desk and rushing to escort Kogoro out. "Before you go, though, do you think I could have your autograph?"

XXX

"Eh? My house?" Sonoko exclaimed.

"It seems so," said Ran, looking over the text her father had just sent. "He thinks the stolen Buddha statue might be at your house, so he wants you to talk to your dad about it."

Sonoko's family had a lot of priceless stuff, though, so even if her father allowed it, they weren't just about to let anyone poke around the place. "All right, I'll talk to him," she told Ran quietly. "Just don't tell the foreigners about it."

"What's wrong with them?" Ran asked.

"It's that Kyle kid," Sonoko whispered conspiratorially. "I think he's leading Katie-chan on!"

"Is that what that argument was about?" Ran wondered. "Hannah-chan and Katie-chan got into a huge blowout over something a while ago, but they were talking in English so quickly I couldn't catch what it was about."

"That has to be it!" Sonoko declared. Kyle-kun's secret lover must be Hannah-chan!"

"Really?" Ran asked, not sounding convinced. "If you ask me, I think Elsa-san would be more suspicious."

"Who?"

"A friend of Hannah-chan's from America. She's not part of the group, and she's older than us by a few years. You haven't met her?"

"Wait, is she the girl that came by and took Sera-chan away that day?" Sonoko said, suddenly realizing who Ran meant.

"Yes, that's her," Ran confirmed. "She seems to know Kyle-kun from somewhere, and they're closer than he and Hannah-chan are."

The two girls were quiet, thinking about the situation. Then Sonoko changed the subject. Pulling out her phone, she told Ran, "Tell your father that I'll contact Dad about a missing key. Maybe he'll get the servants to do a full inventory of the house." Satisfied, she sent the message.

XXX

Later that evening, Conan, Ran, Sonoko, and Kogoro were at the Suzuki residence while the servants looked around for the missing statue. Other servants were doing a key inventory.

Sonoko's father Shiro entered from another room. "Mouri-tantei, I've got everybody looking for it," he told Kogoro. "How would the thieves have gotten in here, though? And why here? Why not hide it at their own house?"

"That's what I'm hoping to find out," said Kogoro. "Have you hired any new help recently?"

A female servant approached the Advisor, preventing him from answering. "Sir!" she said, standing at attention in a respectful posture. "We have located the statue Mouri-tantei is looking for. We are awaiting your orders before we move it."

The group quickly followed the servant into the back. Upon entering a storeroom in the back of the house, they saw the statue, seemingly glowing in the semidarkness. "Oh, you've found it!" Shiro exclaimed. "I'll have it returned to the shrine before the day is up," he told Kogoro. "Would you like to see our surveillance to see who the culprit was?"

As the two discussed this, Conan noticed that the female maid, the one who had led them to the room, was staring at the statue with a glare of steel. She looked somewhat familiar, but Conan couldn't place her. She had short black hair put up in a bun and looked perhaps a little foreign. If Elsa was right about whatever that thing was being some all-powerful Artifact, Conan couldn't risk just anyone getting their hands on it. He took a few steps forward to more closely guard it, and that's when the maid made her move.

With no warning, she suddenly sprang forward, grabbed it up in both hands, and held it to her chest. The reaction was immediate. She was suddenly enveloped in a bright light that forced everyone in the room to shield their eyes. When the light died down, they all saw something downright strange going on. The girl was spinning in a circle at breakneck speed, hovering perhaps a millimeter off the floor. Steam erupted from her body and her face looked like it was in pain. Then she screamed, loudly, for about three seconds, before, she collapsed to the floor.

Her hair, which had turned out to be a wig, had been blown off by all the spinning, revealing her true identity: Ai Haibara, or rather her adult form Shiho Miyano.

'What is _she_ doing here?" Conan wondered. "And why is she an adult?"

Haibara blinked as she slowly came back to her senses. "Seems you've caught me," she said slowly. "Yes, I'm the thief. Surprise!"

She was acting so out of character that Conan wondered for a moment if she was just a lookalike. Then she addressed Ran. "Ran-chan, why are staring at me like that? Don't tell me you don't recognize me."

Ran looked very confused, but then her face lit up. "You're the girl who saved the kids from the burning cabin, aren't you?"

Haibara shrugged. "Sure, let's go with that, since you don't remember. But I'm actually not anybody you know right now. The kid knows me, though." She looked at Conan. "Remember me, kid? My name's Nostrum. You tried to kick a soccer ball in my face."

'WHAT?' Conan thought, completely stunned.

Haibara/Nostrum addressed the room. "This statue isn't actually a statue, you know. It's a little something with a lot of power in it, and I'm keeping it for myself." The onlookers watched, stunned, as the statue began to morph into something small and handheld, a European medieval scepter. It was silver with a blue globe on top. "Uh, it's not quite the same, but it'll do," he said to himself. Or herself. It was pretty confusing to keep track.

Then Haibara addressed Ran again. "With this, I've got stuff to go do. But I don't need any of you interrupting, so here's a distraction." He aimed the scepter at Conan, waved it in a circle, and released a fine green mist that quickly enveloped him.

"Conan-kun!" Ran screamed, racing forward to save him.

"No! Don't interfere!" Haibara shouted. It was too late, though, because now Ran was all tangled up in whatever s/he was doing. "Drat. Why can't anything ever go right?" s/he said, before twirling the scepter and disappearing into thin air.

Conan felt an intense bone-melting sensation, the same as when he took a temporary antidote. 'Don't tell me…I'm going back to Shinichi in front of Ran!' Conan thought. The intense sensations made him pass out as wave after wave of pain overtook him.

* * *

Well _that_ escalated. What happened is that first the Paint Man returned Haibara's personalities to the worlds in which they belonged, so now our Haibara is back here. Then he put a fragment of his soul within her mind, which basically took over her mind and actions. So he's basically controlling her.

Next chapter, the ramfications of what 'Shiho' did to Conan comes to light, and they have to deal with that. They have to figure out where Shiho went, too, in order to stop her. As always, if you like the story, feel free to favorite it, me, or leave a review. Thanks! XD


End file.
